THE 

ENCHANTED   YEARS 

A  Book  of  Contemporary  Verse 


DEDICATED  BY  POETS  OF  GREAT 
BRITAIN  AND  AMERICA  TO  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA  ON  THE 
OCCASION  OF  ITS  ONE-HUNDREDTH 
ANNIVERSARY 


EDITED  BY 

JOHN  CALVIN  METCALF 

LINDEN   KENT   MEMORIAL   PROFESSOR  OF 
ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

AND 

JAMES  SOUTHALL  WILSON 

EDGAR  ALLAN   POE   PROFESSOR   OF  ENGLISH 
UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA 


NEW  YORK 

HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY 
1921 


COPYRIGHT,    IQ2I,   BY 
THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA 


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THE  QUINN  a  BODEN  COMPANY 


FOREWORD 

THE  opening  of  the  twentieth  century  has  seen  a 
renaissance  of  poetry  in  the  English-speaking  lands. 
Poetry  has  become  a  part  of  the  intellectual  interest 
of  thinking  people  as  it  has  not  been  since  the  days 
of  Queen  Elizabeth.  The  nature  of  this  poetic 
revival  is  somewhat  different  in  England,  in  Ireland 
and  in  America;  but  it  is  significant  that  in  all  these 
countries  a  simple  directness,  freedom  from  rhetori 
cal  strain,  and  a  virile  naturalness  are  noticeable 
traits.  In  England  there  has  been  a  greater  power 
of  restrained  simplicity  and  natural  force;  in  Ire 
land,  a  finer  realization  of  pure  lyric  beauty  and 
spiritual  values;  in  America,  an  intensity  of  poetic 
feeling,  a  variety  of  expression  and  thought,  and  an 
adventurous  courage  in  imaginative  experimentation. 

Of  course,  as  always  when  art  is  vitally  in  touch 
with  reality,  there  has  been  marked  individuality  of 
manner  and  tone  rather  than  group  similarity.  The 
leading  English  poets  have  been  too  original  in  crea 
tive  power  to  be  called  Georgian,  save  as  the  name 
marks  an  era.  The  Irish  writers  may  all  have  a  part 
in  the  Celtic  Renaissance,  but  the  fairy  magic  of  one 
or  the  lyric  oracles  of  another  cannot  be  classified 
by  one  academic  label.  Nor  can  the  term  "  new 
poetry"  in  America  resolve  the  colorful  robust 
vitality,  the  cryptic  vision,  the  brilliant  intellectu 
ality,  and  the  quiet  beauty  of  certain  poets  into  the 
patterned  product  of  a  narrowed  code  of  art. 

"  The  Enchanted  Years  "  is  a  collection  of  verse 
representative  of  many  different  poetic  aims  and 

iii 


methods.  The  freer  forms  of  verse  and  the  more 
traditional  phrasings  meet  on  the  common  ground 
of  a  clearly  defined  poetic  purpose.  From  the  voices 
of  many  of  the  sweetest  and  strongest  singers  the 
reader  may  learn  through  the  poems  brought  to 
gether  here  what  the  tone  in  poetry  of  his  own  cen 
tury  is.  Most  of  the  verses  included  have  not  been 
published  before,  and,  therefore,  though  some  have 
been  printed  in  periodicals,  and  three  or  four  in 
books,  the  volume  is  essentially  a  book  of  new  orig 
inal  poetry.  The  poets,  in  all  cases,  have  spoken 
their  own  thoughts  upon  their  own  themes.  The 
contents  of  the  book  have  been  freely  given  by  the 
authors  as  a  centennial  contribution  to  the  Univer 
sity  of  Virginia,  and  the  editors  sincerely  thank  the 
distinguished  group  of  poets  who  have  dedicated  the 
products  of  their  art  to  the  making  of  this  anthology. 
They  are  grateful,  also,  for  the  generous  interest  of 
several  other  great  writers  who,  though  desirous  of 
contributing  to  the  volume,  were  for  unavoidable 
reasons  prevented  from  doing  so.  Perhaps  no  gift  in 
its  centenary  year  will  enter  more  fully  into  the 
heritage  of  Poe's  University  than  will  this  gift  of 
the  poets. 

The  University  of  Virginia  was  founded  in  1819 
by  Thomas  Jefferson.  Because  of  world  conditions 
the  centennial  celebration  was  delayed.  In  this  year 
of  hesitant  expectancy  and  of  new  world  conditions, 
it  officially  closes  one  century  and  turns  confidently 
to  the  future.  With  Jefferson  as  father  and  distin 
guished  Englishmen  upon  the  first  faculty;  with  Poe 
among  its  earliest  sons  and  Woodrow  Wilson  among 

iv 


the  latest,  it  seems  fitting  that  the  enchanted  years 
of  the  past  should  be  symbolized  by  the  mingled 
voices  of  poets  of  great  Britain  and  America  whose 
wisdom  helps  make  the  present,  too,  "  The 
Enchanted  Years  ". 

UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA, 
March  1,  1921. 

J.  C.  M. 
J.  S.  W. 


CONTENTS 


ARMISTEAD  CHURCHILL  GORDON 

LORD  DUNSANY 
W.  H.  DAVIES 
CALE  YOUNG  RICE 
JOHN  HALL  WHEELOCK 
GRACE  HAZARD  CONKLING 
MARY  CAROLYN  DAVIES 


ALFRED  KREYMBORG 

JAMES  C.  BARDIN 

VIRGINIA  TAYLOR  McCoRMiCK 

WILLIAM  GRIFFITH 

WILLIAM  GRIFFITH 

LOUISE  DRISCOLL 

D.  H.  LAWRENCE 

D.  H.  LAWRENCE 

JOHN  GOULD  FLETCHER 

AMY  LOWELL 

H.D.  (Mrs.  Richard  Aldington) 

AGNES  LEE 

CLINTON  SCOLLARD 
GAMALIEL  BRADFORD 
GAMALIEL  BRADFORD 
HELEN  GRAY  CONE 

KATHARINE  LEE  BATES 

VACHEL  LINDSAY 

VACHEL  LINDSAY  • 

KATE  LANGLEY  BOSHER 


PAGE 

The  University  of  Vir 

ginia         ...  1 

To  Keats    ...  3 

On  What  Sweet  Banks  4 

The  Lake-Dweller  .  5 

Sea-Horizons     .       .  6 

Maine  Woods  in  Winter  8 
Tree  Songs 

I  Be     Deferent     to 

Trees    ...  10 
II  On  a  Windy  Night 
by    a    Tree    Lie 

Down          .       .  10 

III  Red  Yews      .       .  11 

IV  Tree-Taught          .  12 
Chipmunks          ...  13 
Tropic  Beach  Song  .       .  14 
When  Spring  Returns   .  16 
Spring    Blew    Open    the 

Door  ....  17 

Origins  ....  19 

A  Weed  ....  21 

Slopes  of  Etna  .  .  22 

Tropic  ....  23 

Prelude  and  Ode  .  .  24 

The  Enchanted  Castle  .  26 

Egypt  ....  27 
The  Singer  of  the 

Shadows  ...  29 

At  the  Grave  of  Poe  .  32 

Thomas  Jefferson  .  .  34 

Ode  to  Thomas  Jefferson  35 
Sonnets  Dedicated  to  the 

University  of  Virginia  38 

Woodrow  Wilson  .  .  40 

Our  Mother  Pocahontas  43 
I  Know  All  This  When 

Gipsy  Fiddles  Cry  .  46 

Lee  .  52 


vii 


GEORGE  EDWARD  WOODBERRY 

WlLLOUGHBY   WEAVING 

AMELIA  JOSEPHINE  BURR 
OLIVE  TILFORD  DARGAN 
WINIFRED  M.  LETTS 

THEODORE  MAYNARD 
THEODORE  MAYNARD 
FLORENCE  WILKINSON 
LEE  WILSON  DODD 
ANGELA  MORGAN 
GRACE  FALLOW  NORTON 
GEORGE  HERBERT  CLARKE 
GEORGE  HERBERT  CLARKE 
CLEMENT  WOOD 

JEAN  STARR  UNTERMEYER 
THEODOSIA  GARRISON 
CHARLES   WHARTON   STORK 
ELEANOR  ROGERS  Cox 
ELEANOR  ROGERS  Cox 

ANNA  HEMPSTEAD  BRANCH 

JOHN  FINLEY 
MARGUERITE  WILKINSON 
GEORGE  STERLING 
Louis  UNTERMEYER 
EDWIN  MARKHAM 
EDWIN   ARLINGTON   ROBINSON 
JOHN  DRINKWATER 
FANNIE  STEARNS  GIFFORD 
BASIL  L.  GILDERSLEEVE 

NORREYS  JEPHSON  O'CoNOR 


NORREYS  JEPHSON  O'CoNOR 

RALPH  HODGSON 

RICHARD  ALDINGTON 

HENRY  AYLETT  SAMPSON 

THOMAS  HARDY 

MARGARET  PRESCOTT  MONTAGUE 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  LEONARD 
MAY   RILEY    SMITH 


PAGE 

To    the    University    of 
Virginia          ...     53 

Fate 54 

Before  the  Crucifix  .  56 
Defiance  ....  58 
Somehow  —  Somewhere 

—Sometime  .  .  60 
Sonnet  ....  61 
Paganism  ....  62 
The  University  .  .  63 
Secular  Ode  ...  65 
Education  ...  66 
The  Smiling  Dead  .  .  67 
The  Last  Mobilization  .  68 
"Motionless"  ...  70 
The  Man  Came  to  the 

Mountain  ...  71 
To  a  War  Poet  .  .  74 
An  Old  Poet  ...  75 
To  a  Suicide  Poet  .  .  76 
To  a  Dead  Poet  .  .  79 
Three  White  Birds  of 

Aengus  ...     80 

I  Think  of  Him  as  One 

Who  Fights  .  .  82 
Duovir  .  .  84 

Praise         .  .       .    87 

Saul      .      .  .       .    90 

The  Window  .       .     93 

Virgilia        .  .       .     95 

Afterthoughts  .       .100 

A  Lesson  to  My  Ghost  101 
The  Turn  of  the  Road  104 
To  the  University  of 

Virginia          .       .       .   106 
The    Spirit    of    Ireland 
Considers    her    Herit 
age     107 

In  an  Oriental  Shop  .  109 
Silver  Wedding  .  .  110 
To  a  Greek  Marble  .111 
On  an  Old  Hymn-Book  112 
The  Two  Rosalinds  .  113 
The  Soul  of  the  Little 

Room  .  .  .  .117 
Flight  of  Crows  .  .118 
"  Sweet  Reasonableness  "  121 


Vlll 


BENJAMIN  SLEDD 
BENJAMIN  SLEDD 
ARTHUR  SYMONS 
SARAH  N.  CLEGHORN 


PERCY  MACKAYE 

RICHARD  BURTON 
MAXWELL  STRUTHERS  BURT 
JOSEPHINE  DASKAM  BACON 

ROBERT  HAVEN   SCHAUFFLER 

JOHN  ERSKINE 

JOHN  VANCE  CHENEY 

MARGARET  SHERWOOD 

TERTIUS  VAN   DYKE 

R.  T.  W.  DUKE,  JR. 

WALTER  DE  LA  MARE 


PAGE 

Poet— Singer— Bird        .  122 
When  Freedom  Came   .  123 
The   House        .       .       .127 
On  Reading  Many  His 
tories    of    the    United 
States      ....  128 
On      Walt      Whitman's 
Leaves  of  Grass  .       .  131 

Art 132 

Princeton  to  Virginia     .  133 
The   Pictures   Sorolla  y 

Bastida  ....  135 
Dream  ....  139 
Achilles  and  the  Maiden  140 
The  Ninth  Symphony  145 
A  Choice  ....  148 
Remembered  Beauty  .  150 
What  the  Clay  Said  unto 

the  Potter  .  .  .151 
Goodbye  .  .  .  .152 


IX 


THE  ENCHANTED  YEARS 
A  Book  of  Contemporary  Verse 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA 

(1819-1861-1920) 

MOTHER  of  Men,  mother  of  loves  and  dreams, 
Behold  her,  standing  in  her  pillared  porch, 
Bearing  aloft  the  unextinguished  torch 

Whose  light  across  the  crowded  century  streams, — 

With  an  intrepid  countenance  that  seems 

Touched  into  rapture  by  remembered  years, 
And  lovely  with  the  tenderness  of  tears, — 

The  new  smile  breaking  where  the  old  tear  gleams; 

In  peace,  in  war,  still  keeping  her  old  fashion 
Of  truth  that  fosters  freedom,— her  old  light 
In  eyes  that  met  one  equal  face  of  fight 

In  her  sons'  faces,  when  with  weaponed  passion 

They  bared  their  breasts,  in  her  immortal  honor, 
To  Death,  and  saw  that  no  shame  fell  upon  her. 
Armistead  Churchill  Gordon 


TO  KEATS 

ON  a  magical  morning,  with  twinkling  feet, 
And  a  song  at  his  lips  that  was  strange  and  sweet, 
Somebody  new  came  down  the  street 
To  the  world's  derision  and  laughter. 

Now  he  is  dumb  with  no  more  to  say, 
Now  he  is  dead  and  taken  away, 
Silent  and  still  and  leading  the  way, 
And  the  world  comes  tumbling  after. 

Lord  Dunsany 


ON  WHAT  SWEET  BANKS 

ON  what  sweet  banks  were  thy  pure  fancies  fed, 
What  world  of  smiling  light  has  been  thy  home; 
In  what  fair  land  of  rainbows  wert  thou  bred, 
From  what  green  land  of  cuckoos  art  thou  come? 

By  all  that  great  blue  wonder  in  thine  eyes, 
Baffled  and  vexed  I  stand  before  thy  smile — 
Thy  thoughts,  like  angels,  guard  thee  from  surprise, 
We  see  them  not,  yet  feel  them  all  the  while. 

That  smile  which,  like  the  sun  on  every  thing, 
Now  falls  on  me  with  no  increased  delight, 
Must  either  go  behind  a  cloud  and  bring 
Death  to  my  hopes,  or  give  my  love  more  light. 

W.  H.  Dames 


THE  LAKE-DWELLER 

I'VE  never  climbed  mountains, 
Nor  sailed  across  the  sea; 
I  don't  know  where  Llassa  is, 
Nor  Seoul  nor  Araby; 
But  every  year  the  wild  geese, 
With  distance  on  their  wings, 
Come  dropping  into  Doole  Lake 
And  tell  me  many  things. 

They  don't  speak  in  Latin, 
And  Greek  is  not  their  tongue. 
Their  lore  is  not  in  any  book, 
It  can't  be  said  or  sung. 
But  when  I  see  them  sink  down 
From  star-expectant  skies, 
I  learn  what  would  even  make 
The  fool's  heart  wise. 

They've  been  where  I'll  never  go, 
They'll  go  as  far  again. 
Yet,  tho  I'm  but  a  man,  it  is 
Their  wings  alone  I  ken. 
So  I  can  see,  at  Doole  Lake, 
More  than  worlds  go  by 
In  just  a  flock  of  wild  geese 
That  pass  along  the  sky. 

Cale  Young  Rice 


SEA-HORIZONS 

THE  desolate  expanse  from  heaven  to  heaven 
From  zone  to  zone,  from  deep  to  height  above, 

The  mute  arch  of  the  everlasting  heaven 
Bends  over  me  with  Your  unwearied  love. 

Immeasurable,  unutterable,  and  soundless — 
Wide  as  the  east  from  the  west  Your  love  is  wide; 

The  unfathomable  distances  are  boundless 
Infinite  tenderness  on  every  side. 

Against  the  dark  strength  of  Your  huge  endurance 
My  little  being  beats  her  baffled  wings, 

Lifts  her  shrill  voice,  and  wounds  the  calm  assurance 
And  tenderness  of  Your  large  evenings. 

In  the  vast  robes  of  Your  serene  compassion 
She  hides  her  soiled  and  burning  face  of  shame — 

Your  solemn  and  inexorable  passion 

Lifts  her  blurred  eyes  to  meet  Your  glance  of 
flame. 

As  bread  that  for  my  daily  fare  is  broken, 
The  eternal  loveliness  before  me  spread — 

Unutterable  gesture — word  unspoken — 
In  the  proud  silences  forever  said. 

The  sun  puts  forth  his  strength,  the  reaches  shimmer 
With  inarticulate  rapture,  and  the  proud 

Waters  are  thrilled;  the  fields  of  ocean  glimmer 
With  shifting  light  and  overshadowing  cloud. 
6 


Noon  upon  noon  in  heaven  takes  up  his  station, 
Day  follows  night,  and  night  succeeds  to  day; 

Your  infinite  and  lonely  meditation 

Sinks  with  the  sunset  down  the  starry  way. 

Veiled  is  the  Vast:  the  heaven  of  evening  burning 
Reveals  on  the  large  waters  of  the  sea 

Hopelessness— hopelessness— the  patient  yearning 
And  dumb  caress  of  the  Immensity. 

Sorrowful  is  the  mighty  Heart  that  reaches  ^ 
Around  this  brief  and  scornful  heart  of  mine, 

The  long  curve  of  His  melancholy  beaches 
And  vacancies  along  the  lone  sea-line. 

In  the  huge  longing  of  the  far  sea-spaces, 
The  tremulous  rim  about  the  waters  curled, 

Waits  the  eternal  Gentleness,  and  traces 
His  sad  horizons  'round  the  fading  world. 

Cloud  beyond  cloud,  the  arch  of  heaven  goes  over- 
Deep  beyond  deep,  the  patient  skies  descend— 
The  illimitable  wastes  and  waves  discover 
Loneliness — loneliness — without  an  end. 

Inexorable  Compassion,  may  I  never 

Reach  the  last  verge  and  limits  of  Your  love! 

Beyond  me,  still  beyond  me  melt  forever 
The  eternal  margins,  fading  as  I  move. 

John  Hall  Wheelock 


MAINE  WOODS  IN  WINTER 

Now  I  have  climbed  the  hillside  to  discover 
The  forest  sitting  in  its  silver  clothes 
With  ermine  pulled  about  its  knees.    I  know 
There  is  no  better  place  than  trees  have  found 
To  live  their  lives  in,  past  the  million  years 
That  life  has  toiled  to  make  them  perfect  trees; 
And  I  shall  listen  to  their  thoughts  a  while, 
For  I  would  share  the  minds  of  men  no  longer. 
Here  the  rich  snow  might  be  a  floor  of  cloud; 
Or  sifted  hawthorn-bloom  cloud-like  and  soft 
Poured  thick  from  Maytime  hedges;  or  the  drift 
Down  a  pear-orchard  when  a  gust  has  passed; 
Or  all  the  captive  foam  of  a  coral  island; 
Or  feathers  of  a  comet  lost  in  air 
And  fallen  forgotten  from  the  flying  star. 
And  not  a  sound  of  the  world  can  leap  the  wall 
Of  thrilling  quiet  where  great  trees  stand  still 
As  though  one  gesture  might  unhinge  the  moon 
And  bring  it  down  too  close  to  show  its  deeps 
Of  alabaster  valley  any  more, 
Or  send  the  sun  astray  with  the  moon  to  follow 
Out  of  their  reach,  and  blot  the  sky  with  dark. 
They  would  not  break  the  spell  of  any  dream. 
And  God  is  dreaming  too. 

So  they  stand  still. 

I  wonder  when  I  go  among  such  trees 
Far  from  the  fields  and  deeper  in  alone, 
If  I  shall  find  a  silence  before  sound 
That  was  in  the  beginning?    Will  there  be  rest 
8 


And  room  for  music  in  my  mind  again 
After  the  interval?    I  shall  creep  close 
To  watch  the  wind  writing  upon  dry  leaves 
With  pencil  of  sunlight  words  I  cannot  read, 
And  I  shall  write  too,  with  an  icicle 
That  withers  like  a  rainbow  from  my  grasp. 
I  shall  forget  the  passionate  hastes  of  men 
Among  the  swarthy  hemlocks;  and  Orion 
Will  pierce  the  forest-thatch  with  casual  eye 
Before  I  miss  the  sun.    Oh,  I  shall  be 
The  imagining  spirit  of  that  solitude, 
Bold  to  create  a  stillness  of  my  own 
Above  the  cataract  of  the  universe 
Where  it  pours  down  obscure  and  infinite 
Under  a  whirling  surface-foam  of  worlds: 
The  trees  will  keep  me  listening  all  day  long! 
And  I  shall  know  them,  learn  their  evening  look, 
Gray  that  is  purple,  purple  that  is  dusk, 
Or  running  with  the  lean  and  supple  wind 
Follow  the  dawn  along  their  mighty  columns 
That  loom  and  glitter  in  an  air  like  bronze. 

Grace  Hazard  Conkling 


9 


TREE  SONGS 

Dedicated  to  the  University  of  Virginia 
i 

BE  DEFERENT   TO   TREES 

THE  talking  oak 

To  the  ancient  spoke. 

But  any  tree 
Will  talk  to  me. 

What  truths  I  know 
I  garnered  so. 

But  those  who  want  to  talk  and  tell, 
And  those  who  will  not  listeners  be, 

Will  never  hear  a  syllable 
From  out  the  lips  of  any  tree. 

2 

ON  A  WINDY  NIGHT  BY  A  TREE  LIE  DOWN 

The  tree  of  knowledge  of  evil  and  good 
Is  any  tree  in  any  wood. 
If  wise  and  mighty  you  would  be 
Leave  the  town  and  learn  of  the  tree. 

Stand  by  a  tree  of  a  windy  day; 

On  a  windy  night  by  a  tree  lie  down; 
And  months  beyond,  the  words  it  will  say 

Will  save  you  alive,  midst  the  dead  in  town. 
10 


RED  YEWS 

Under  the  red  yews  here  I  lie 
Listening  to  the  day-sounds  die. 

The  vine  leaves  dead 

Are  smooth  and  red 

And  the  year  has  spread 

Them  for  my  bed 
And  safe  and  sheltering  over  my  head 

Are  the  yews  for  ceiling. 
Some  trees  are  for  goad  and  spur, 
Festering  goad  and  stinging  spur; 

But  the  yew  trees  are  for  healing. 

That  is  because  the  yews  are  old, 

Dignified,  sober  and  old. 
Hundreds  of  years  have  made  this  tree 
And  whispered  wisdom  to  it.    We 

Can  hear  that  wisdom  if  we  creep 
On  a  windy  night  close  under  its  boughs 
And  harken  in  that  quiet  house 

To  the  words  it  murmurs  in  its  sleep. 

Red  yew,  who  are  kind  and  great 

Red  yew,  here  I  lie  aright 
Ears  and  heart  are  open,  and  wait 

There  is  wind!    Speak  loud  tonight! 


ill 


4 

TREE-TAUGHT 

The  tree-taught  ones  are  the  mighty  ones 

The  town-taught  ones  fall  down 
Before  the  spears  of  the  silent  ones 

Who  learned  of  tree,  not  a  town. 

For  each  word  of  a  tree  is  a  truth  of  the  world 

And  each  word  of  a  town  is  a  lie; 
So  scorning  a  town — where  the  sun  falls  down 

Of  a  tree  you  shall  learn,  and  I. 

We  shall  learn  of  a  tree  what  life  can  be 
And  death? — can  the  tree-taught  die? 

Mary  Carolyn  Dames 


12 


CHIPMUNKS 
For  E.A.P. 

THE  supposedly  old 
and  the  apparently  new, 
madly,  blindly  chasing  each  other, 
hate  in  each  heart 
screeching  death  to  the  other, 
are  chipmunks 
circling  the  trunk  of  a  tree 
around  and  around  and  around  and 

around 

till  the  two  merge  in  one 
dizzy  streak  of  a  band, 
like  a  pin-wheel  afire 
with  rope-skipping  flame 
come  to  what  looks  like  a  stop. 
But  let  the  band  stretch,  the  band 

snap? — 
we  have  the  rondo  all  over  again! 

Alfred  Kreymborg 


TROPIC  BEACH  SONG 

THE  surf 

With  the  sound  of  tearing  silk 

Foams  across  the  barrier  reef — 

Hisses  on  the  strand. 

And  the  cloud-streaked  moon 

Frets  behind  a  palm  frond — 

Glistens  on  the  mangoes 

And  leaps  into  fire 

Where  a  scarlet  orchid  hangs. 

Running  on  the  sand — 
Swiftly  she  passes  me! — 
A-tiptoe,  a-tiptoe — 
Along  the  waters'  edge, 
Comes  a  girl  from  the  village 
With  a  rose  in  her  hair — 
With  a  rose  in  her  hand — 
With  a  rose  hid  deep 
In  the  cleft  beneath  her  throat. 

She  stops 

On  a  hummock  of  the  sand. 
The  wind 

Whirls  her  pina  skirt  about  her 
And  clutches  at  her  bodice 
As  if  to  snatch  the  rose 
Hidden  deep,  deep,  deep 
In  her  bosom. 
And  the  moon 

Sends  a  flame  through  her  garments, 
14 


As  the  wind  blows  them  closer, 

And  they  seem 

To  dissolve 

In  the  light  pouring  down. 

She  pauses  a  moment — 

A  Nereid  cut  in  amber, 

Half  concealed  where  the  shadow 

Wins  its  battle  with  the  light. 

And  the  waves  on  the  shingle 

Come  yearning — yearning — yearning — 

Ah,  my  heart  knows  how  they  hope 

she  will  stay, 
And  let  them  kiss  her  feet. 

James  C.  Bardin 


WHEN  SPRING  RETURNS 

I  WONDER  why  spring  comes  again 

To  earth  with  you  not  there, 

And  why  the  sunshine  and  the  rain 

Should  bring  us  flowers  as  fair 

As  those  your  gentle  hands  have  pressed 

In  all  the  springs  now  gone, 

And  why  the  willows  stand  new-dressed 

To  greet  the  fragrant  dawn. 

You  can  not  see  their  beauty  pale, 
Nor  smell  the  cowslip's  breath; 
The  violets  purple  *all  the  vale 
While  you  keep  tryst  with  Death. 
You  come  no  more,  but  know  you  this, 
If  thoughts  your  spirit  find, 
In  every  flower  we  feel  your  kiss, 
Your  nearness  in  each  wind. 

Virginia  Taylor  McCormkk 


16 


SPRING  BLEW  OPEN  THE  DOOR 

SPRING  blew  open  the  door; 

An  aspen  stirred 

And  turned  about, 

As  if  in  doubt 

Of  the  time  of  day, 

Or  so  they  say; 

And  all  of  a  sudden  was  something 

heard 
That  rose  from  a  sigh  to  a  ghostly 

shout, 

As  now  and  again 
In  a  panic  the  rain 
Went  skurrying  over  the  forest  floor 
A  bud  came  out — 
And  then  a  bird. 


Spring  blew  open  the  door; 

On  a  nearby  hill 

A  robin  found 

A  place  in  the  sun, 

And  all  in  fun 

Made  a  rollicking  sound 

That  was  less  than  a  call 

And  more  than  a  trill, 

Sinking  low  and  lower, 

And  then  was  still. 

On  all,  on  all 

Was  the  dawning  grace 

Of  a  radiant  face 


And  a  presence  rare 
As  the  shadowy  things 
That  out  of  the  air 
A  dryad  weaves. 
A  rustle  of  leaves, 
A  flutter  of  wings, 
A  heavenly  stir 
In  the  lilac  tree — 
And  a  rogue  of  a  bee 
Caught  sight  of  Her. 

William  Griffith 


18 


ORIGINS 

Beginning  with  Lilith  and  Eve,  there  have  been  two 
classes  of  women — one  that  takes  the  strength  out  of  a 
man,  and  one  that  puts  it  back. — PROVERB. 

INTO  a  dark  world  of  strange  talk 

Came  a  soft  voice, 

As  that  of  a  bird 

Lulling  forest  and  fen. 

And  then, 

Stirred 

By  a  word 

That  bade  him  rejoice 

And  rise  and  walk, 

Adam  awoke, 

Spoke, 

Listened  awhile 

For  an  answering  call, 

As  a  great  silence  fell  over  all. 

Brooding  and  serious, 

Something  mysterious 

On  him  was  casting  the  shadow  of  pain 

When,  with  a  vain, 

Curious  smile, 

(A  sigh  of  the  eye), 

As  a  siren  went  by, 

The  first  of  men  shuddered, 

Turned  over  and  over 

In  thistle  and  clover, 

And  slept  again: 

And  dreamt  of  Lilith/ 
19 


Darker  and  stranger  grew  the  world, 

Fig  leaves  were  shed, 

And  serpents  curled. 

And  overnight 

Was  born  delight; 

And  overday 

Was  born  desire 

To  curb  dismay, 

Lest  Adam  tire. 

The  skies  were  red; 

And  all  the  glory 

Of  time  in  story 

Suddenly  flashed. 

And  thunder  crashed; 

And  under  the  vine  and  fig-tree  there, 

Gowned  and  crowned  with  her  radiant  hair, 

And  frail  as  fire  and  free  as  the  air, 

And  fair  as  her  daughters  have  sought 

to  be  fair, 
A  woman  stood 
In  virginhood. 
Over  the  grass 
It  came  to  pass 
That  her  eyes  spoke  .    .   . 
So  sweet  was  she 
To  hear  and  see, 
So  virginwise, 
That  from  his  eyes 
And  body  then 

The  scales  had  all  but  fallen  when 
Adam  awoke. 

Eden  and  Eve! 

William  Griffith 
20 


A  WEED 

BECAUSE  I  scatter  my  seed 

Prodigally,  and  grew 

Where  the  wind  has  chanced  to  blow, 
You  call  me  a  weed. 

I  look  at  your  gardens  fair, 
With  flowers  in  stately  rows, 
And  my  wild,  little  seed  heart  knows 

I  could  never  be  happy  there. 

My  mother  was  gipsy  born, 

My  father  a  roving  bee, 

There  is  vagabond  blood  in  me, 
I  am  not  to  be  trained  and  shorn! 

I  am  poor  and  mean  indeed, 

But  I  make  the  waste  place  glad, 
And  the  wayside  color-mad, 

Where  there  is  room  for  a  weed. 

Louise  Driscoll 


21 


SLOPES  OF  ETN> 

PEACE  is  written  on  the  doorstep 
In  lava. 

Peace,  black  peace — 

My  heart  will  know  no  peace 

Till  the  mountain  bursts  again. 

Brilliant,  intolerable  lava 
Brilliant  as  a  powerful  burning-glass 
Walking  like  a  royal  snake  down  the  mountain 
towards  the  sea. 

Forests,  cities,  bridges 

Gone  under  again  in  the  bright  trail  of  the  snake 

That  has  slept  so  long  inside  the  mountain; 

Since  Naxos,  thousands  of  feet  below  the  olive-roots; 

To  wake  again,  and  walk  over  the  olive  leaves 

And  lay  black  roads  above  the  aloe-spikes. 

Peace  in  lava  on  the  door-step. 

White-hot  serpent  in  my  heart,  trying  to  lift  its  head 

Never  at  peace. 

Till  lava  breaks. 

Till  it  burst  forth  white-hot,  withering 

To  set  in  black  rock. 

Call  it  Peace? 

D.  H.  Lawrence 


22 


TROPIC 

SUN,  dark  Sun 

Sun  of  black,  void  heat 

Sun  of  the  torrid  midday's  horrific  darkness 

Behold  my  hair  twisting  and  turning  black 
Behold  my  eyes  turn  tawny  yellow. 

The  milk  of  northern  spume 
Coagulating  and  going  black  in  my  veins 
Aromatic  as  frankincense. 

Columns  dark  and  soft 

Sunblack  men 

Valved  nostrils,  sunbreathing  mouths 

Eyes  of  yellow,  golden  sand 

As  frictional,  as  perilous,  explosive  brimstone. 

Rock,  waves  of  dark  heat 

Waves  of  dark  heat,  rock,  sway  upwards 

Waver  perpendicular. 

What  is  the  horizontal  rolling  of  water 
Compared  to  the  flood  of  black  heat  that 
rolls  upward  past  our  eyes. 

D.  H.  Lawrence 


PRELUDE  AND  ODE 

Dedicated  to  the  University  of  Virginia 

EAST  wind,  west  wind, 

Blowing  through  the  dark  blue  pinetops, 

Wind  of  the  winter  crying, 

What  would  you  have  me  say? 

North  wind,  south  wind, 

Sweeping  still  through  years  and  seasons, 

Wind  of  the  spirit  binding 

Poe's  heart  to  Shelley's  heart; 

What  would  you  have  me  say? 
Years  will  pass  and  men  may  vanish, 
But  the  barren  heights  of  life 
Hold  the  singer's  troubled  heart. 


Clouds  lie  at  night  along  the  ancient  mountains, 
Lit  by  the  moon,  their  rounded  heads  in  stillness 

faintly  glowing. 

Underneath  pass  faint  flickers  of  heat-lightning: 
The  fireflies  burn  green-yellow  on  the  grass. 

Clouds  of  the  night  ascend  and  over  their  shifting 

summits 
There   rise  the   southern  stars,  unseen  in  other 

latitudes; 

Canopus  and  Antares  burn  their  track 
Above  the  low  horizon,  dimly  seen; 

24 


And  on  the  hilltop  is  a  stranger,  one 
Who  keeps  his  watch  as  steadfast  Israfel; 
His  mind  holds  all  the  meaning  of  the  skies, 
His  heart  knows  all  the  sorrows  of  the  earth. 

As  swift  irradiations  in  the  night 
From  far  heat-lightning  on  a  lonely  plain, 
Or  Venus  over  a  pinewood  dimly  seen, 
So  to  mankind  must  be  the  singer's  heart. 

He  is  as  one  whose  face  he  scarcely  knows; 
Strange  must  be  even  to  him  that  secret  power 
That  bids  him  take  through  years  of  waning  strength 
Sorrow  for  victory  and  defeat  for  joy; 

He  is  as  one  who  hears  the  final  words 
Of  comfort,  Calvary-spoken; — "  Even  this  day, 
Thou  shalt  be  with  me  in  far  Paradise;  " 
And  on  his  forehead  is  the  lustrous  sign 

Of  one  appointed  to  his  lifelong  task, 
Self-consummating,  self-consuming.    Still 
He  fashions  love  from  death  and  heaven  from  hell, 
Since  on  his  lips  has  paused  the  burning  word. 

The  word,  the  last  and  first  of  essences, 
In  the  beginning,  God's;  and  given  to  this  earth 
As  shaped  by  chiming  stars  or  quiring  pines, 
Or  whispered  by  the  moon  on  Southern  nights. 

John  Gould  Fletcher 


THE  ENCHANTED  CASTLE 

To  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

OLD  crumbling  stones  set  long  ago  upon 
The  naked  headland  of  a  suave  green  shore. 
Old  stones  all  riven  into  cracks  and  glands 
By  moss  and  ivy.    Up  above,  a  peak 
Of  narrow,  iron  windows,  a  hooded  tower 
With  frozen  windows  looking  to  the  West. 
When  the  sun  sets,  a  winking  fiery  light 
Riffles  the  window-panes  above  the  gloom 
Of  purple  waters  heaving  evenly, 
Waters  moving  about  the  naked  headland 
In  sombre  slowness,  with  no  dash  of  spray 
To  strike  the  stagnant  pools  and  flash  the  weeds. 
A  rack  of  shifting  clouds 
Darkens  the  waters'  margin.    On  the  shore 
Are  clusters  of  great  trees  whose  brittle  leaves 
Crackle  together  as  the  mournful  wind 
Takes  them  and  shakes  them.    But  the  tower 

windows 

Fling  bloody  streams  of  light  across  the  dusk, 
Flanges  of  bloody  light  which  the  upper  sky 
Has  hurled  at  them  and  now  is  drawing  back. 
Behind  the  tower,  where  no  windows  are, 
A  little  wisp  of  moon  catches  the  stones 
So  that  they  glitter  palely  from  the  shore, 
The  suave  green  shore  with  all  its  leaden  trees. 

Amy  Lowell 


EGYPT 

(To  Edgar  Allan  Poe) 

EGYPT  had  cheated  us, 
for  Egypt  took 
through  guile  and  craft 
our  treasure  and  our  hope, 
Egypt  had  maimed  us, 
offered  dream  for  life, 
an  opiate  for  a  kiss, 
and  death  for  both. 


White  poison  flower  we  loved 
and  the  black  spike 
of  an  ungarnered  bush — 
(a  spice — or  without  taste — 
we  wondered — then  we  asked 
others  to  take  and  sip 
and  watched  their  death) 
Egypt  we  loved,  though  hate 
should  have  withheld  our  touch. 


Egypt  had  given  us  knowledge, 
and  we  took,  blindly, 
through  want  of  heart, 
what  Egypt  brought; 
knowing  all  poison, 
what  was  that  or  this, 
more  or  less  perilous, 
than  this  or  that. 
27 


We  pray  you,  Egypt, 

by  what  perverse  fate, 

has  poison,  bought  with  knowledge, 

given  us  this — 

not  days  of  trance, 

shadow,  fore-doom  of  death, 

but  passionate  grave  thought, 

belief  enhanced, 

ritual  returned  and  magic; 

Even  in  the  uttermost  black  pit 

of  the  forbidden  knowledge, 

wisdom's  glance, 

the  grey  eyes  following 

in  the  mid-most  desert — 

great  shaft  of  rose, 

fire  shed  across  our  path, 

upon  the  face  grown  grey,  a  light, 

Hellas  re-born  from  death. 

H.,D. 


THE  SINGER  OF  THE  SHADOWS 

//  /  could  dwell 

Where  Israjel 

Hath  dwelt,  and  he  where  I 

He  might  not  sing  so  wildly  well 

A  mortal  melody, — 

While  a  bolder  note  than  this  might  swell 

From  my  lyre  within  the  sky. 

— Edgar  Allan  Poe 

FROM  far  beyond  all  death,  all  spaces  dark, 

With  art  sublime 
The  singer  of  the  shadows  came  to  mark 

His  land,  his  time. 

Poet  of  grief,  he  sought  her  loneliest  cave, 

Her  ultimate  aisle, 
Her  ruined  keep,  her  mouldering  architrave 

And  peristyle. 

Poet  of  tombs,  the  midnight  was  his  theme. 

Adventuring  far, 
He  pierced  the  opal  center  of  a  dream, 

Or  of  a  star. 

Let  those  who  walk  with  lore  the  beaten  road 

From  others  ask 
The  daily  bread  of  thought,  cheer  for  the  load, 

Sun  for  the  task. 

An  hour  there  is  when  sunshine  brings  to  pain 

Unfaith,  unrest, 
When  she  would  feel  the  footfalls  of  the  rain 

Upon  her  breast, 

29 


When,  circled  in  a  misty  aureole, 

His  charm  distils 
A  craved  narcotic  for  the  fevered  soul, 

From  sorrow's  hills. 

Ah,  we  to-day  the  sweeter  count  the  soil 
His  wandering  pressed! 

His  dust  has  flowered.    The  darkness  of  his  toil 
The  light  has  blessed. 

England  acclaims  him.    France,  attuned,  aware, 

Greets  him  with  bay, 
And  calls  him  brother,  through  her  Baudelaire, 

And  Mallarme. 

Too  long  have  lettered  dwarf  and  neophyte 

Cast  him  their  stones, 
Who  flesh  beheld,  not  spirit,  worked  their  blight 

Above  his  bones. 

Enough  of  slander!     Bolted  be  the  gate 

To  evils  wild 
Envies  evolve  and  lies  perpetuate! 

Art  owns  her  child. 

Cradle  him  soft,  O  Art,  who  only  knew 

To  speak  your  tongue! 
You  were  his  life,  and  his  life's  residue 

The  dream  unsung. 


Your  lesser  planets  let  his  glow  outlive, 

High  and  apart, 
Who,  earthbound,  gave  you  all  he  had  to  give— 

His  tortured  heart. 

Pride  has  departed,  Doom  has  crossed  the  door, 

Love  calls  farewell. 
But  from  your  firmament  forever  more 

Shines  Israfel! 

Agnes  Lee 


AT  THE  GRAVE  OF  POE 

SPRING'S  glow  and  glamour  over  Baltimore 
Above  the  green  God's  acre  where  he  lies, 

The  sunlight,  amber  as  some  fabled  ore, 
And  the  ethereal  blue  of  vernal  skies, 
He  who  so  long  since  solved  the  great  surmise, 

And  haply  now  tunes  an  immortal  lyre 

(He  who  could  tune  a  mortal  lyre  so  well) 
With  the  rapt  Israfel, 

And  the  celestial  choir. 


As  white  as  snow  the  marble  of  his  tomb 

Against  the  climbing  ivy  on  the  wall; 
No  cypress  bough,  with  its  unhallowed  gloom, 

Here  flings  its  sombre  shade  funereal; 

Even  the  church-tower,  turreted  and  tall, 
Speaks  not  of  dolor,  and  the  slender  spines 

Of  arbor-vitae  tell  of  life,  not  death, 

The  life  that  quickeneth 
His  immemorial  lines. 


Yet  he  was  phantom-haunted;  eldritch  things 
Peopled  the  silent  chambers  of  his  brain; 

Forevermore  the  winnow  of  dark  wings 

Beat  round  about  him,  as  when  autumn  rain 
Is  hurtled  by  wild  gusts  against  the  pane. 

Weird  wraiths  companioned  him,  but  none  the  less, 
Amid  the  forms  of  ghoul  and  ghost  and  gnome, 
Figures  were  wont  to  roam 

Of  light  and  loveliness. 

32 


His  was  the  master's  magic;  every  chord 

He  touched  gave  forth  a  throb  of  melody; 

No  music  welled  whereof  he  was  not  lord, 
Whether  he  sang  some  city  by  the  sea 
Or  some  strange  palace  built  of  Faery; 

He  wove  the  spell  of  immaterial  chimes 

Into  his  fabric;  e'en  the  midnight  bird 
An  unforgotten  word 

Breathed  through  his  charmed  rhymes. 

He  walked  with  shadows,  and  yet  who  shall  say 
We  are  not  all  as  shadows,  we  who  fare 

Towards  one  dim  bourn  along  life's  fateful  way, 
Sharing  the  griefs  and  joys  once  his  to  share 
Who  passed  erewhile  to  that  fair  Otherwhere 

Beyond  the  poignancy  of  bliss  or  woe! 

There  hangs  the  immitigable  pathos  of  dead 

years, 
High  hopes  bedewed  with  tears, 

About  the  grave  of  Poe. 

Clinton  Scollard 


33 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON 

HE  made  men  free  and  sought  to  make  them  wise, 
Knowing  that  haughty  and  untrammeled  will, 
Restless  desires,  which  judgment  does  not  still, 

Unsettle  states  with  ignorant  surmise. 

Sage  government,  he  held,  is  that  which  tries 
To  teach  distinction  between  good  and  ill, 
To  spread  large  knowledge  of  the  past  and  fill 

Men's  minds  with  high,  serene  philosophies. 

We  should  be  better  citizens,  if  we  knew 

What  wrecked  old  cities  of  decayed  renown, 

Could  test  the  false,  if  not  divine  the  true. 

Learning,  well  disciplined,  would  beat  pride 
down. 

And  weary  wit,  long  strained  to  find  thought's  clue, 
Would  own  humility  as  wisdom's  crown. 

Gamaliel  Bradford 


34 


ODE 

TO 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON 

For  the  Centennial  Celebration  oj  the  University 
of  Virginia 

"  Error  is  the  stuff  of  which  the  web  of  life  is  woven 
and  he  who  lives  longest  and  wisest  is  only  able  to  weave 
out  the  more  of  it." — JEFFERSON  TO  CHASTELLUX. 

I 

EVEN  in  his  day  what  the  wise  felt  most 

Was  human  ignorance;  how  far  thought  might 

range 

Through  shadowy  kingdoms,  like  a  groping  ghost, 
Where  new  ideas  in  perpetual  change 
Rose,  altered,  shifted,  vanished,  till  that  strange, 
Bright,  turbulent  array 
Left  the  beholder  lost, 
Ready  in  desperate  weariness  to  say 
That  learning  lures  us  only  to  betray. 

ii 

A  hundred  fleeting,  crowded  years  have  past, 

And  thought's  wide  realm,  but  half  surveyed 

before, 
Has  stretched  in  fields  inimitably  vast, 

And  still  extends  its  borders  more  and  more, 
Till  tired  wit,  doomed  ever  to  explore 
New  theories,  new  facts, 
Each  stranger  than  the  last, 
Folds  its  reluctant  pinion  and  contracts 
Its  scope  from  haughty  dreams  to  humble  acts. 

35 


in 

In  all  the  turmoil  of  bewildered  hope 

His  eager  brain  still  roved  to  find  a  clue. 
If  through  a  dubious  future  we  must  grope, 

Let  us  discern  the  past  with  watchful  view 
And  make  the  old  give  counsel  to  the  new. 
He  kindled  learning's  torch; 
Bade  you  reflect,  not  mope; 
Seek  thoughts  that  cool,  not  lusts  that  sear  and 

scorch, 
Find  shelter  from  the  world  in  wisdom's  porch. 

IV 

Yet  no  man  ever  knew  better  than  he 

That  all  our  travail,  all  our  endless  pain 
Back  on  itself  recoils,  until  we  see 

How  tedious  days  and  nights  are  spent  in  vain, 
And  from  vast  labor  our  securest  gain 
Is  that  we  learn  to  bear 
In  sage  tranquillity, 

From  having  seen  how  ignorant  we  were, 
The  knowledge  of  how  ignorant  we  are. 

v 
Like  prattling  children  we  reiterate 

Our  petulant  questions,  ask  and  ask  and  ask; 
With  huge  endeavor  strive  to  penetrate 

Truth's  imperturbable  and  baffling  mask. 
Happy,  if  by  the  long  and  fruitless  task 
Reason  is  taught  to  see 
That  its  supreme  debate 
Can  but  resolve  Nature's  complexity, 
Her  tangled  chaos,  into  mystery. 

36 


VI 

For  mystery  means  wonder,  sacred  awe; 

Not  fret,  not  terror,  not  "disturbed,  mad  eyes, 
Shrinking  from  ghosts  old  superstition  saw, 
But  luxury  of  ever  new  surprise, 
New  beauty  whose  enjoyment  deifies, 
Secrets  of  thought  unveiled, 
Sources  from  which  to  draw 
Splendors  of  spirit  that  shall  live  unpaled, 
When  worn,  dead  creeds  have  served  their  use  and 
failed. 

vn 
And  wonder  in  the  mind  breeds  in  the  heart 

Humility  and  lowly  reverence. 
The  best  that  all  our  learning  can  impart 
Is  quiet  hope  and  patient  innocence. 
The  deepest  wisdom  should  eschew  pretence, 
High  phrase  and  questing  odd, 
Should  centre  all  its  art 
To  build  an  altar  on  the  simple  sod 
For  adoration  of  the  Unknown  God. 

Gamaliel  Bradford 


37 


SONNETS  DEDICATED  TO  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA,  A.D.  MCMXXI 


BLUE  mountains  fold  about  her  where  she  stands, 

Un vexed  by  murmurs  of  the  crowds  afar, 
Wearing  the  grace  and  glory  of  ancient  lands, 

Yet  young  as  hope  and  the  fresh  sunrise  are. 
The  enchantment  of  that  lucent  azure  wall 

Safeguards  her  beauty;  still  it  shines  the  same 
As  when  first  leaped  in  her  white-pillared  hall, 

Alight  on  Wisdom's  altar,  Freedom's  flame. 
The  noble  hand  that  wrote  our  nation  free, 

And  all  men  free  forever,  lit  that  fire, 
Caught  from  the  heart's  fierce  heat  for  Liberty; 

Her  lips  are  proud  to  say,  "  He  was  my  sire!  " 
Years  fleet  as  clouds;  hates  pass,  and  harms,  and 

pains; 
The  mountains  pass  not,  the  pure  Truth  remains. 


So  may  she  stand  another  hundred  years, 

Storing   great   memories,    moulding   manhood 

new; 

Great  memories,  that  survive  all  stabs  and  sneers, 
New  manhood,  keen  to  find  the  labyrinth's  clue: 
So  may  she  stand  in  a  transfigured  earth 

Washed  clean  of  wars,  in  brotherhood  bound 

fast; 

And  when  men  ask  how  such  a  world  had  birth, 
And  turn  to  grant  the  laurel  at  the  last, 
38 


To  praise  the  prophet  held  in  slight  esteem, 

And  crown  him  with  another  crown  than  thorn, 

To  hail  the  dreamer  of  the  lofty  dream, 

And  grave  in  bronze  the  name  they  spoke  in 
scorn : 

Ah,  then,  her  second  century's  course  being  run, 

She  with  proud  lips  will  smile:  "  He  was  my  son!  " 

Years  fleet  as  clouds;  hates  pass,  and  harms,  and 

pains: 
The  mountains  pass  not,  the  pure  Truth  remains. 

Helen  Gray  Cone 


39 


WOODROW  WILSON 


WE  stand  so  close  to  terror  and  to  splendor, 

Muffled  in  dark  or  dazzled  by  the  glow, 

We  can  not  tell  our  doom  from  our  defender, 

Bewildered  by  immensity  of  woe. 

Fear,  famine,  massacre  the  waste  globe  over, 

Old  empires  rocking,  states  in  rending  throe 

Of  Revolution,  yet  the  treasure-trover 

Is  groping  in  the  ruins,  and  men  graze 

Like  cattle  in  their  own  fenced  field  of  clover, 

Unmindful  that  the  forest  is  ablaze. 
How  have  we  dealt  with  our  high  Patriot, 
The  world's  bright  beacon  in  distracted  days? 

Still  lights  in  darkness  shine,  and  still  their  lot 
Is  that  the  darkness  comprehendeth  not. 

n 

Epitome  of  all  historic  pages, 

We  have  read  the  ancient  savageries  of  war 

In  print  scarce  dried.    All  dramas  of  all  ages 

Crowd  our  brief  stage;  the  stealthy  senator 
Poisons  the  wind  with  whispers  against  greatness 
That  dwindles  him,  till  our  worn  warrior 

Is  ringed  with  daggers;  crookedness  and  straightness, 
The  traitor  knights  and  questers  of  the  Grail, 
Merge  in  that  last  dim  battle,  desolateness 

40 


Of  chivalry,  where  blindly  through  the  veil 
Of  wizard  mist  bewildered  weapons  smite 
Sore-wounded  Arthur  in  his  silver  mail, 

Until  the  pagans  triumph  and  the  fight 
Sobs  into  silence  of  the  deepening  night. 

in 

Spirit  long  shaping  for  sublime  endeavor, 
A  Sword  of  God,  the  gleaming  metal  came 
From  stern  Scotch  ancestry,  where  whatsoever 

Was  true,  was  pure,  was  noble,  won  acclaim; 

From  scholar  sires  of  holy  consecration 

Whose  saints  were  Knox  and  Calvin.    In  the  flame 

And  on  the  anvil,  in  that  strong  creation 
Of  blade  from  ore,  did  not  Geneva  call 
Unto  Geneva?     For  the  world's  salvation 

Was  wrought  that  brand,  a  splendor  over  all, 
Deep-scored  by  many  a  skilled  artificer 
With  runes,  cross-hilted,  jeweled  for  the  hall, 

Keen-edged  for  combat,  burning  through  base  slur 
And  cruel  calumny,  Excalibur. 

w 

Upflung  upon  an  agony  exceeding 
All  agonies  this  haggard  earth  has  borne, 
On  his  one  heart  beat  all  the  frantic  pleading 

Of  all  the  starved,  plague-ridden,  battle-torn, 
Perishing  peoples,  while  those  furtive  foemen, 
Old  Selfishness,  Derision,  Faith  Forsworn, 


Let  fly  their  poisoned  arrows,  practised  bowmen, 
From  ambush.  So  the  wrestling,  glorious  dream 
That  winged  his  heart  was  brought  to  dust,  an  omen 

111  for  humanity,  prompt  to  blaspheme 

A  brightness  dimmed,  a  roseate  vision  paled. 

Yet  from  that  trampled  heart  the  immortal  gleam 

Ascends  a  living  League  of  Nations  hailed 

By  Christmas  chimes.    Its  champion  has  not  failed. 

v 

Democracy!    Alas,  our  souls  are  shaken. 

The  wisdom  of  the  multitude  is  vain, 

A  passion  that  all  varying  winds  awaken, 

Save  it  becomes  the  wisdom  of  the  main, 
The  innumerable-created,  tossing  ocean, 
Whose  tides,  though  buffeted  by  hurricane, 

Follow  with  deep,  undauntable  devotion 
Their  guiding  moon,  calm  goddess  of  the  sea, 
Rhythm  and  law  of  all  its  foaming  motion. 

O  surging  hearts!     Unless  divine  decree 
Or  Right  control  us,  one  more  sorry  jest 
For  cynic  Time  shall  our  Republic  be. 

"  Democracy  is  on  its  final  test," 

Warns  our  white  leader,  who  has  loved  it  best. 

Katharine  Lee  Bates 
December,  1920. 

42 


OUR  MOTHER  POCAHONTAS 

(NOTE: — Pocahontas  is  buried  at  Gravesend,  England.) 

"  Pocahontas'  body,  lovely  as  a  poplar,  sweet  as  a  red 

haw  in  November  or  a  pawpaw  in  May — did  she 

wonder?  does  she  remember — in  the  dust — in  the 

cool  tombs?  »  _Carl  Sandburg 

I 

POWHATAN  was  conqueror, 
Powhatan  was  emperor. 
He  was  akin,  to  wolf  and  bee, 
Brother  of  the  hickory  tree. 
Son  of  the  red  lightning  stroke 
And  the  lightning-shivered  oak. 
His  panther-grace  bloomed  in  the  maid 
Who  laughed  among  the  winds  and  played 
In  excellence  of  savage  pride, 
Wooing  the  forest,  open-eyed, 
In  the  springtime, 
In  Virginia, 
Our  Mother,  Pocahontas. 

Her  skin  was  rosy  copper-red. 

And  high  she  held  her  beauteous  head. 

Her  step  was  like  a  rustling  leaf: 

Her  heart  a  nest,  untouched  of  grief. 

She  dreamed  of  sons  like  Powhatan, 

And  through  her  blood  the  lightning  ran. 

Love-cries  with  the  birds  she  sung, 

Birdlike 

In  the  grape-vine  swung. 

By  permission  of  Vachel  Lindsay  and  The  Macmillian 
Company 

43 


The  Forest,  arching  low  and  wide 

Gloried  in  its  Indian  bride. 

Rolfe,  that  dim  adventurer 

Had  not  come  a  courtier. 

John  Rolfe  is  not  our  ancestor. 

We  rise  from  out  the  soul  of  her 

Held  in  native  wonderland, 

While  the  sun's  rays  kissed  her  hand, 

In  the  springtime, 

In  Virginia, 

Our  Mother,  Pocahontas. 

ii 

She  heard  the  forest  talking, 

Across  the  sea  came  walking, 

And  traced  the  paths  of  Daniel  Boone, 

Then  westward  chased  the  painted  moon, 

She  passed  with  wild  young  feet 

On  to  Kansas  wheat, 

On  to  the  miners'  west, 

The  echoing  canons'  guest, 

Then  the  Pacific  sand, 

Waking, 

Thrilling, 

The  midnight  land.  .    .    . 

On  Adams  street  and  Jefferson — 
Flames  coming  up  from  the  ground! 
On  Jackson  street  and  Washington — 
Flames  coming  up  from  the  ground! 
And  why,  until  the  dawning  sun 
Are  flames  coming  up  from  the  ground? 
44 


Because,  through  drowsy  Springfield  sped 

This  red-skin  queen,  with  feathered  head, 

With  winds  and  stars,  that  pay  her  court 

And  leaping  beasts,  that  make  her  sport; 

Because,  gray  Europe's  rags  august 

She  tramples  in  the  dust; 

Because  we  are  her  fields  of  corn; 

Because  our  fires  are  all  reborn 

From  her  bosom's  deathless  embers, 

Flaming 

As  she  remembers 

The  springtime 

And  Virginia, 

Our  Mother,  Pocahontas. 

in 

We  here  renounce  our  Saxon  blood. 
Tomorrow's  hopes,  an  April  flood 
Come  roaring  in.    The  newest  race 
Is  born  of  her  resilient  grace. 
We  here  renounce  our  Teuton  pride: 
Our  Norse  and  Slavic  boasts  have  died: 
Italian  dreams  are  swept  away, 
And  Celtic  feuds  are  lost  today.  .    .    . 
She  sings  of  lilacs,  maples,  wheat, 
Her  own  soil  sings  beneath  her  feet, 
Of  springtime 
And  Virginia, 
Our  Mother,  Pocahontas. 

Vachel  Lindsay 


45 


I  KNOW  ALL  THIS  WHEN  GIPSY  FIDDLES 
CRY 

OH  gipsies,  proud  and  stiffnecked  and  perverse, 
Saying: — "  We  tell  the  fortunes  of  the  nations, 
And  revell  in  the  deep  palm  of  the  world. 
The  head  line  is  the  road  we  choose  for  trade, 
The  love  line  is  the  lane  wherein  we  camp, 
The  life  line  is  the  road  we  wander  on. 
Mount  Venus,  Jupiter,  and  all  the  rest, 
Are  finger  tips  of  ranges,  clasping  round 
And  holding  up  the  Romany's  wide  sky," 


Oh  gipsies,  proud  and  stiffnecked  and  perverse, 
Saying: — "  We  will  swap  horses  till  the  doom, 
And  mend  the  pots  and  kettles  of  mankind, 
And  lend  our  sons  to  big-time  vaudeville, 
Or  to  the  race-track, — or  the  learned  world! 
But  India's  Bramah  waits  within  their  breasts, 
They  will  return  to  us  with  gipsy  grins, 
And  chatter  Romany,  and  shake  their  curls, 
And  hug  the  dirtiest  babies  of  the  camp. 
They  will  return  to  the  moving  pillar  of  smoke, 
The  whitest  toothed,  the  merriest  laughers  known, 
The  blackest  haired  of  all  the  tribes  of  men. 
What  trap  can  hold  such  cats?    The  Romany 
Has  crossed  such  delicate  palms  with  lead  or  gold, 
Wheedling  in  sun  and  rain,  through  perilous  years, 
All  coins  now  look  alike.    The  palm  is  all. 
Our  greasy  pack  of  cards  is  still  the  book 
Most  read  of  men.    The  heart's  librarians, 

46 


We  tell  all  lovers  what  they  want  to  know, 

So,  out  of  the  famed  Chicago  Library, 

Out  of  the  great  Chicago  orchestras, 

Out  of  the  skyscraper,  the  Fine  Arts  Building, 

Our  sons  will  come  with  fiddles  and  with  loot, 

Dressed,  as  of  old,  like  turkey  cocks,  and  zebras, 

Like  tiger  lilies  and  chameleons, 

Go  west  with  us  to  California, 

Telling  the  fortunes  of  the  bleeding  world, 

And  kiss  the  sunset  ere  their  day  is  done." 

Oh  gipsies,  proud  and  stiffnecked  and  perverse, 

Picking  the  brains  and  pockets  of  mankind, 

You  will  go  westward  for  one  half  hour  yet. 

You  will  turn  eastward  in  a  little  while. 

You  will  go  back,  as  men  turn  to  Kentucky, 

Land  of  their  fathers,  dark  and  bloody  ground. 

When  all  the  Jews  go  home  to  Syria, 

When  Chinese  cooks  go  back  to  Canton,  China, 

When  Japanese  photographers  return 

With  their  black  cameras  to  Tokio, 

And  Irish  patriots  to  Donegal, 

And  Scotch  accountants  back  to  Edinburgh, 

You  will  go  back  to  India,  whence  you  came. 

When  you  have  reached  the  borders  of  your  quest, 

Homesick  at  last,  by  many  a  devious  way, 

Winding  the  wonderlands  circuitous, 

By  foot  and  horse  will  trace  the  long  way  back, 

Fiddling  for  ocean  liners  while  the  dance 

Sweeps  through  the  decks,  your  brown  tribes  all 

will  go! 

Those  east-bound  ships  will  hear  your  long  farewell, 

47 


On  fiddle,  piccolo  and  flute  and  timbrel. 
I  know  all  this  when  gipsy  fiddles  cry. 

That  hour  of  their  homesickness  I  myself 
Will  turn,  will  say  farewell  to  Illinois, 
To  old  Kentucky  and  Virginia, 
And  go  with  them  to  India,  whence  they  came. 
For  they  have  heard  a  singing  from  the  Ganges, 
And  cries  of  orioles, — from  the  temple  caves, — 
And  Bengal's  oldest,  humblest  villages. 
They  smell  the  supper  smokes  of  Armitsar. 
Green  monkeys  cry  in  Sanscrit  to  their  souls, 
From  lofty  bamboo  trees  of  hot  Madras. 
They  think  of  towns  to  ease  their  feverish  eyes, 
And  make  them  stand  and  meditate  forever, 
Domes  of  astonishment,  to  heal  the  mind. 
I  know  all  this  when  gipsy  fiddles  cry. 

What  music  will  be  blended  with  the  wind 
When  gipsy  fiddlers,  nearing  that  old  land 
Bring  tunes  from  all  the  world  to  Bramah's  house? 
Passing  the  Indus,  winding  poisonous  forests, 
Blowing  soft  flutes  at  scandalous  temple  girls, 
Filling  the  highways  with  their  magpie  loot, 
What  brass  from  my  Chicago  will  they  heap, 
What  gems  from  Wallah  Wallah,  Omaha, 
Will  they  pile  near  the  Bohdi  Tree,  and  laugh? 
They  will  dance  near  such  temples  as  best  suit  them, 
Though  they  will  not  quite  enter  or  adore. 
Looking  on  roofs,  as  poets  look  on  lilies, 
Looking  at  towers,  as  birds  at  forest  vines, 

48 


That  leap  to  treetops  through  the  dizzy  air. 
I  know  all  this,  when  gipsy  fiddles  cry. 

And  with  the  gipsies  there  will  be  a  king, 

And  a  thousand  desperados,  just  his  style, 

With  all  their  rags  dyed  in  the  blood  of  roses, 

Dyed  with  the  blood  of  angels  and  of  demons. 

And  he  will  boss  them  with  an  awful  voice. 

And  with  a  red  whip  he  will  beat  his  wife, 

He  will  be  wicked  on  that  sacred  shore, 

And  rattle  cruel  spurs  against  the  rocks, 

And  shake  Calcutta's  walls  with  circus  bugles. 

He  will  kill  Brahmins  there,  in  Kali's  name, 

And  please  the  thugs  and  blood-drunk  of  the  earth. 

I  know  all  this,  when  gipsy  fiddles  cry. 

On  sweating  thieves  and  hard-boiled  scalawags, 
That  still  will  boast  your  pride  until  the  doom, 
Smashing  every  caste  rule  of  the  world, 
Reaching  at  last  your  Hindu  goal  to  smash 
The  caste  rules  of  old  India  and  shout: — 
"  Down  with  the  Brahmins,  let  the  Romany  reign!  " 
When  gipsy  girls  look  deep  within  my  hand 
They  always  speak  so  tenderly  and  say 
That  I  am  one  of  those  star-crossed  to  wed 
A  princess  in  a  forest  fairy  tale. 
So  there  will  be  a  tender  gipsy  princess, 
My  Juliet,  shining  through  this  clan. 
And  I  would  sing  you  of  her  beauty  now. 
And  I  will  fight  with  knives  the  gipsy  man 
Who  tries  to  steal  her  wild  young  heart  away. 

49 


And  I  will  kiss  her  in  the  waterfalls, 

And  at  the  rainbow's  end,  and  in  the  incense 

That  curls  about  the  feet  of  sleeping  gods, 

And  sing  with  her,  in  canebrakes,  and  in  ricefields, 

In  Romany,  eternal  Romany. 

We  will  sow  secret  herbs,  and  plant  old  roses, 

And  fumble  through  dark  snaky  palaces, 

Stable  our  ponies  in  the  Taj  Mahal, 

And  sleep  outdoors  ourselves. 

In  her  stange  fairy  mill-wheel  eyes  will  wait 

All  windings  and  unwindings  of  the  highways, 

From  India  across  America, 

All  windings  and  unwindings  of  my  fancy, 

All  windings  and  unwindings  of  all  souls, 

All  windings  and  unwindings  of  the  heavens. 

I  know  all  this  when  gipsy  fiddles  cry. 

We  gipsies,  proud  and  stiffnecked  and  perverse, 

Standing  upon  the  white  Himalayas, 

Will  think  of  far  divine  Yosemite. 

We  will  heal  Hindu  hermits  there  with  oil 

Brought  from  California's  tall  sequoias, 

And  we  will  be  like  gods,  that  heap  the  thunders, — 

And   start   young   redwood   trees   on   time's   own 

mountains. 

We  will  swap  horses  with  the  rising  moon, 
And  mend  that  funny  skillet  called  Orion, 
Color  the  stars  like  San  Francisco's  street-lights, 
And  paint  our  fortune-telling  sign  on  high, 
In  planets  like  a  bed  of  crimson  pansies; 
While  a  million  fiddles  shake  all  listening  hearts, 
Crying  good  fortune  to  the  Universe, 

50 


Whispering  adventure  to  the  Ganges  waves, 
And  to  the  spirits,  and  all  winds  and  gods, 
Till  mighty  Bramah  puts  his  golden  palm 
Within  the  gipsy  king's  great  striped  tent 
And  asks  his  fortune  told  by  that  great  love-line 
That  winds  across  his  palm  in  splendid  flame. 

Only  the  hearthstone  of  old  India 

Will  end  the  endless  march  of  gipsy  feet. 

I  will  go  back  to  India  with  them 

When  they  go  back  to  India,  whence  they  came. 

I  know  all  this,  when  gipsy  fiddles  cry. 

Vachel  Lindsay 


LEE 

A  PASSION  of  conflict — Country  or  State! 
Allegiance  or  loyalty! — which  clearer  the  call? 
Man  of  the  nation,  a  name  blazoned  high 

On  escutcheons  of  glory — 
Should  he  part  with  the  past  in  which  they — his 

people — 

Had  writ  deep  and  fast, 
Lee! 

Harsh,  bitter,  and  cruel  the  struggle. 

Then — white  and  undimmed 

The  altar  of  Duty  shone  out  of  the  dusk, 

And  Love  burned  away  all  dreaming  of  dross. 

But  he  knew  not,  when  yielding  one  sword  for 

another, 

He  had  carved  on  the  heart  of  his  country  forever, 
Lee! 

Kate  Langley  Bosher 


TO  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA 

On  her  Centenary,  1921 

To  tell  the  truth,  to  keep  their  word,  to  hold 
Honor  the  dearest  jewel  of  their  hearts, 
To  children's  children  this  fair  seat  imparts, — 

Jefferson's  dream;  him  love  of  truth  made  bold 

To  irradiate  the  New  World  from  the  old 
Source  of  immortal  letters,  humane  arts, — 
The  hopes  of  man;  how  far  its  bright  flood  darts, 

Through  the  third  part  of  our  dominions  rolled! 

Virginia,  planter  of  the  South  and  West 
With  the  old  learning,  culture,  eloquence, 
Heaven  recompense  to  thee  thy  gifts  again! 

The  star  of  poetry  shines  from  thy  breast; 
Thy  scholars — poets,  soldiers,  Presidents — 
In  one  full  voice  uniting,  cry  "  Amen!  " 

George  Edward  Woodberry 


53 


FATE 

To  the  University  of  Virginia 

SHE  holdeth  time  in  her  hand 

Like  a  bubble  of  glass 

Wherein  clouds  gather  and  stand 

And  visions  pass, 

Glancing  at  these  and  those 

With  a  careless  smile 

As  pondering  things  more  close 

To  her  heart  the  while, — 

As  time  to  her  were  a  toy, 

Its  phantoms  a  play, 

And  further  than  these  were  her  joy 

And  her  grief  than  they; 

Though  her  clear  calm  passionless  eyes 

No  signs  impart 

Of  hidden  feeling  that  lies 

In  the  depths  of  her  heart. 

Her  purpose  giveth  no  scope 
To  thought  or  dream; 
Neither  despair  nor  hope 
Her  envoys  seem; 
And  none  can  tell  from  the  vain 
Strange  things  that  fall 
Whether  her  heart  contain 
A  purpose  at  all. 

And  yet  her  trackless  desire 
And  inscrutable  plan 
Seem  wrapt  like  a  vesture  of  fire 
Round  the  heart  of  man. 
54 


In  glory  or  anguish  awhile 
She  surpasseth  his  life 
Under  her  favouring  smile 
Or  implacable  strife. 

She  dreameth — and  groweth  by  dreaming 

Now  little  now  great, 

Though  her  love  and  her  hate  of  his  deeming 

Be  but  fancies  of  Fate. 

For  whether  she  sleepeth  or  waketh 

No  passions  disclose: 

Not  even  the  great  heart  that  breaketh 

Can  break  her  repose. 

And  whether  she  be  or  be  not 

No  wisdom  can  tell. 

All  human  visions  foresee  not 

Her  ends,  which  is  well: 

And  no  living  man  can  measure, 

Though  all  men  have  sought, 

If  he  be  the  child  of  her  pleasure, 

Or  she  of  his  thought. 

Willoughby  Weaving 


55 


BEFORE  THE  CRUCIFIX 

Dedicated  to  the  University  of  Virginia,  1921 

In  one  of  the  chapels  of  Notre  Dame  de  Paris  there 
is  a  placard  asking  those  who  kneel  there  before  the 
Crucifix  to  remember  in  their  prayers  the  dead  of  the 
Great  War. 

"  Here,  before  the  Crucifix,  recall 
"  The  dead  of  the  Great  War." 

Remember  all 

Whose  clay  unclaimed  shall  be  a  part  of  France 
Forever;  those  to  whom  sad  Belgium  gave 
All  that  was  left  for  her  to  give,  a  grave; 
Those  who  are  flotsam  on  the  sea's  expanse; 
The  prey  of  the  Red  North,  of  desert  sands; 
The  slain,  the  starved,  the  stricken  of  all  lands; 
Dead   youth — dead    hope — dead    faith — remember 

these 

Here  in  the  dusk,  alone  upon  your  knees 
Before  the  One  who  cried 

"  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  turned  from  me? 
"  It  is  finished."    And  so,  died. 
It  was  not  finished.    Will  it  ever  be? 

We  thought,  we  too,  that  we  had  paid  the  price 
Of  a  new  world,  and  now  we  stand  aghast 
Before  the  seeming-wasted  sacrifice. 
What  of  the  sullied  past 
Is  burned  away?    Has  evil  suffered  loss? 
Are  anger,  lust  and  greed  less  sad  to  see? 
It  is  God  who  hangs  upon  the  cross 
Now,  as  on  Calvary. 

56 


And  yet,  before  the  cross,  no  memory 

Can  stop  at  death.     Hear  Easter's  trumpet-blast! 

As  He  rose,  again  He  shall  arise — 

To  die  again?    A  thousand  times,  maybe, 

For  it  is  only  God  who  dies  and  dies 

Undaunted,  and  lives  on  eternally. 

It  is  our  dulness  bids  Him  die  again 

Since  only  Calvary  lifts  Him  up  to  men. 

We  see  Him  so,  and  worship,  who  were  blind 

When  at  our  side  He  walked  in  peaceful  days. 

When  shall  we  keep  the  sight  of  tears,  and  find 

Our  Master  with  us  in  the  trodden  ways? 

When  shall  we  live  with  Him,  not  bid  Him  die 

To  teach  us  how  to  live — and  then  forget? 

His  Brotherhood  will  conquer — He  will  yet 

Be  throned,  not  crucified,  our  lord  instead 

Of  the  Golden  tyrant  or  the  Red. 

White  comrade  of  the  fighters  who  are  down, 

King  of  high  hearts,  who  would  not  wear  a  crown, 

Strong  friend  of  weakness,  welcoming  the  touch 

Of  childish  fingers  on  His  calloused  hand, 

Forgiver  of  the  sinner  who  loved  much, 

How  we  shall  love  Him — when  we  understand! 

Amelia  Josephine  Burr 


57 


DEFIANCE 

OR  dear  or  great  they  fall  as  grass: 
They  go,  and  never  come; 
And  still  we  seek  out  ways  to  pass 
Beyond  the  tether  of  the  breath; 
Still  hope  runs  on  from  tomb  to  tomb 
Denying  death. 

Set  in  us,  Death,  the  fear  of  fears, — 
Some  day  there'll  be  no  Spring; 
Tramp  earth  till  every  hill  be  bare, 
The  hosts  of  life  on  mocking  spheres 
Beyond  the  hills  of  Jupiter 
Will  sigh  and  sing. 

You  conqueror?    Then  a  greater  lot 
Doth  he,  the  conquered,  own. 
He  looks  into  your  eyes  of  stone, 
He  hears  you  pass,  an  iron  wing, 
But  you,  dark  Force,  you  know  him  not, 
Nor  anything. 

What  is  the  wind-flower's  nod  to  you 
Whose  Spring  brings  back  no  ghost? 
What  is  the  harebell's  shaken  blue, 
Rocking  again  within  my  heart? 
What  are  the  tulip  sails  high  tossed 
Where  suns  depart. 

You  nothing  see  when  youth,  the  Seer, 
Dies  proud  against  a  wall; 
Blind  yet  when  eyes  of  friends  long  true 
58 


Meet  in  your  shadow;  even  there 
Fill  with  a  light  undoing  all 
That  you  can  do. 

A  sage  speaks  clear  as  peals  that  make 
A  gold  lake  of  the  air; 
On  heart  and  lips  that  dared,  you  set 
The  heavy  earth;  but  waiting  where 
A  world's  two  ways  their  parting  take, 
Men  listen  yet. 

A  poet  walks;  you  haste  to  cut 
The  breath  of  flame  and  dew, 
And  doors  of  vision  fumble  shut; 
But  words  of  his,  as  bright  as  tears, 
Have  lit  like  birds  on  all  the  years 
Time  holds  from  you. 

Who  knows  how  lone  the  sea  must  flow 

Is  lonelier  than  the  sea; 

A  greater  than  the  hills  is  he 

Who  feels  them  pass  from  sand  to  sand; 

And  who  knows  Death,  to  Death  may  go 

With  almoner's  hand. 

Or  dear  or  great  they  fall  as  grass; 
They  go,  and  never  come; 
And  still  we  seek  out  ways  to  pass 
Beyond  the  tether  of  the  breath; 
Still  hope  runs  on  from  tomb  to  tomb 
Denying  death. 

Olive  Tilford  Dargan 
59 


SOMEHOW.    SOMEWHERE.    SOMETIME. 


SOMEHOW,  but  God  knows  how,  we'll  meet  again, 

You'll  see  the  firelight  on  the  pane, 

Knock  at  the  door,  call,  "  Come,  my  dear." 

You'll  hear  the  bolt  drawn, — "  You,  love,  here?  " 

And  answer,  "  Yes — no  partings  now, 

For  all  things  have  come  right  somehow." 

n 

Somewhere  beyond  the  furthest,  western  sea, 
My  boat  will  reach  a  sun-washed  quay, 
White  birds,  brown  sails,  a  topaz  sky, 
Your  smile  of  welcome.    You  and  I 
Together  with  all  time  to  spare, 
A  brave  new  shining  world — somewhere! 

in 

Sometime  .  .  .  but  now,  how  long  we  have  to  wait, 

Grey  hair,  deaf  ears,  slow  feeble  gait, 

The  dull  monotony  of  age, 

The  book  of  life  spelt  page  by  page 

Till  sight  fails,  hope  fails,  then  sublime 

The  great  surprise  of  death — sometime! 

Winifred  M.  Letts 


60 


SONNET 

I  MUST  unlearn  my  early  modes  of  praise; 
Forego  the  noisy  trumpet  and  the  drum 
With  which  a  boy  made  music.    I  have  come 
To  learn  a  gentler  art.    I  cannot  raise 
A  fanfarade  along  the  city's  ways 
As  once  I  did.    My  fingers  and  my  thumb 
Tremble  along  the  lute-strings;  and  the  dumb 
Wires  wake  and  whisper  in  the  evening  haze. 

I  have  discovered  beauty  in  my  pain, 
And  with  naught  else  can  I  be  satisfied. 
Never,  oh,  never  shall  I  know  again 
An  easy  rapture.    But  with  muted  breath 
I  softly  cry,  until  my  broken  pride 
Be  mended  by  the  tenderness  of  death. 

Theodore  Maynard 


61 


PAGANISM 

I  TOO  have  rolled  upon  my  lyric  tongue 

The  splendid  taste  of  blasphemy  and  have  been 

Haunted  by  Lucifer's  loveliness.    The  queen 

Of  frantic  heavens  and  hells,  Astarte,  flung 

Her  arms  about  my  aching  body  and  clung 

And  crushed  me  like  a  rose  her  breasts  between, 

Whose  names  are  passion  and  pain.    Oh,  I  have  seen 

How  old  a  man  may  grow  while  he  is  young! 

But  you  and  I  are  torn  by  a  deeper  hunger. 
Pagans  we  would  be  and  we  cannot  be: 
Our  classic  calm  is  lost.    Virginity 
Troubles  our  senses;  while  the  scandalmonger 
Envies  and  chides  the  dreary  sins  which  we 
(Poor  souls!)   were  cheated  with  when  we  were 
younger. 

Theodore  Maynard 


62 


THE  UNIVERSITY 

THERE'S  nowhere  else  in  all  the  world  where  I  would 

rather  walk, 
Than  on  a  college  campus  and  hear  the  young  ghosts 

talk- 
Some  laugh  at  yesterdays  a  hundred  years  ago  and 

more — 
Or  sad  sere  yesterdays  more  recent— just  the  June 

before. 

Oh,  nowhere  else  in  all  the  world  is  there  a  sweeter 

place 
Than  college  quads  and  Lawns,  a  sort  of  charmed 

space 
Where  youth  is  always  youth  and  golden  hours  are 

these 
By  Tuscan  columns  or  beneath  the  starred  magnolia 

trees. 

Young  ghosts — criss-cross  and  mingle — the  medita 
tive  lad, 

The  dark  Lothario  and  the  blond  who  did  his  darn- 
dest  to  be  bad — 

They  people  halls  and  cloisters— ghosts— all  but  the 
undergrad, 

From  Jefferson  the  magnificent  and  Madison  and 

Cabell 

Down  to  our  Jim  McConnell  who  will  forever  dwell 
Tiptoe  and  winged,  genius  of  youth  and  daring — 

Well, 

He  stands  for  any  boy  who  thrills  with  epics  yet  to 
tell. 

63 


Find  me  a  college  meadow,  haunted  the  wide  world 

over, 
Sown  by  the  footsteps  of  young  men,  roisterer, 

student,  rover, 
The  flame-like  feet  beneath  green  shades  of  lad  and 

lout  and  lover. 

They  surely  sought  a  Something  here,  though  vaga 
bond  their  mission; 

For  us  they  wrought  and  left  behind  the  perfume  of 
tradition, 

Faint  images  that  float  before,  gold  glimmer  of 
fruition. 

Florence  Wilkinson 


SECULAR  ODE 

Dedicated  to  the  University  of  Virginia  on  the  com 
pletion  of  Us  first  hundred  years 

MAN,  in  his  little  day, 
What  shall  we  hope  of  man? 
What  permanence  has  spray; 
How  shall  it  build  or  plan? 
What  spirit  has  Caliban 
Beyond  his  belly's  need? 
What  shall  we  hope  of  man 
Born  of  a  crawling  breed? 

Yet,  in  his  eyes  a  spark! 
Yet,  in  his  heart  a  flame! 
Wan  Glow-worm,  shall  the  Dark 
Yet  waver  at  thy  name ! 
Shall  the  wild  Hours  grow  tame 
And  serve  thee  on  humble  feet! 
Shall  nothing  be  the  same — 
Nor  all  things  incomplete? 

Rash  prophets  from  the  mire, 
We  know  not! — but  we  know 
What  kindles  the  heart's  fire, 
Why  faces  lift  and  glow! 
Nor  blindly  do  they  sow 
Whose  harvest-dawns  are  bright! — 
Sow  frost  and  gather  snow: 
Sow  Truth  and  gather  Light! 

Lee  Wilson  Dodd 

65 


EDUCATION 

(Inscribed  to  the  University  of  Virginia) 

You  are  the  answer  to  the  times, 
The  challenge  of  this  crimson  age; 
You  are  the  silencer  of  rage, 
The  end  of  earth's  colossal  crimes. 

Across  the  caverns  of  mischance 
Where  groping  human  minds  would  reach, 
O'er  fearful  gulfs  of  ignorance 
You  are  the  silver  bridge  of  speech. 

You  span  the  silence  and  the  dark 
Of  centuries  replete  with  lore, 
Where  minds  of  men  may  softly  hark 
To  words  of  sages  gone  before. 

You  are  the  swinging  crystal  gate 
Where  Sophocles  and  Sappho  wait; 
Where  Pericles  and  Plato  bring 
Their  answer  to  earth's  questioning 
And  Dante  with  his  flaming  pen 
Bequeaths  the  sword  of  Truth  to  men. 

You  are  the  Heaven-climbing  stair 
Builded  above  the  world's  despair 
Where  souls  of  men  go  singing  up 
To  drink  the  sacramental  cup. 
You  are  the  good  men  grapple  for, 
You  shield  the  song  and  lift  the  grail, 
Because  of  you  man  shall  not  fail 
For  you  are  Conqueror  of  War! 

Angela  Morgan 
66 


THE  SMILING  DEAD 

To  the  memory  of  those  young  men  who  went  from 

the  University  of  Virginia  to  give  the  gift 

by  which  we  live  in  faith  and  freedom 

THESE  brought  their  secret  with  them  to  the  grave, 
These  who  smile.    They  brought  their  secret  sealed, 

they  gave 
It  whole,  inviolate,  to  the  grave. 

See,  the  seeker,  sharp  red  wounds  about  his  head, 

The  breaker,  broken  on  the  altar-stair, 

The  valiant,  lips  white  as  the  moon, 

The  gallant,  bayonets  for  his  bed! 

They  smile,  they  smile,  they  will  be  laughing  soon, 

Their  secret  safe,  well-hidden,  where 

Their  hands  will  soon  lie  crossed, 

Where  their  hearts  lie  locked  and  lost. 

O  simple  secrets  of  the  dead: 

Hunger  of  feet,  hunger  of  hands, 

For  holy  bread, 

For  holy  lands — 

Hunger,  hunger,  hunger  of  soul! 

These  kept  their  hunger  whole. 

They  smile  as  they  lie  dead, 

For  in  their  gift  of  dying  they  were  fed. 

Grace  Fallow  Norton 


THE  LAST  MOBILIZATION 

ENGLAND,  we  come — 
Too  hard  was  the  waiting; 

We  burn  to  the  bugles' 
Eager  vibrating. 

Here  are  your  old  reserves, 
Rovers  and  rangers, 

From  the  wild,  rough  places 
And  the  dared  dangers. 

Blood  of  your  blood  we  were, 
Salt  of  your  savour; 

Spartan  you  moulded  us, 
Never  to  waver. 

Doom  clanged  her  iron  lips 
A  world  swayed  asunder  .    .    . 

Stoutly  you  battled  on, 
Faced  the  fell  thunder. 

You  have  not  shamed  us  where 
We  shadows  must  tarry: 

Grenville  is  glad  of  you, 
Drake,  and  King  Harry! 

Shades?  but  we've  broken  through, 
The  Border  weVe  raided; 

Strange,  stubborn  sentinels 
We  have  persuaded. 

From  the  London  Athenaeum. 
68 


Sidney  salutes  you  now; 
England,  here's  Clive  again; 

Wolfe,  with  his  poet's  heart; 
Richard's  alive  again! 

What  though  to  dusty  death 
Once  we  descended? 

Soul  of  your  soul  are  we 
Till  time  be  ended. 

Nelson  and  Wellington, 
Our  captains,  commanders, 

Marshal  their  men-at-arms 
For  France  and  Flanders. 

Let  us  lift  up  our  hearts, 
Devon  and  Dover, 

Men  of  antipodes, 

Sailors  from  frozen  seas, 
Each  ranger  and  rover; — 

Comrades,  with  us  unite! 

God,  and  the  freeman's  right! 

Lift  we  our  hearts  and  fight 
Till  this  hell-burst  be  over! 

England,  our  England, 
We  share  your  ongoing, 

With  full,  free  banners 
Gallantly  flowing! 

George  Herbert  Clarke 


"  MOTIONLESS  " 

MOTIONLESS,  upon  her  bed, 
By  pale  roses  garlanded, 

Little  Dorothea  lies, 

Incommunicably  wise 
With  the  wisdom  of  the  dead. 

'Twas  but  yesterday  she  wed: 
Now  her  golden,  girlish  head 
Wears  another  bridal  guise, 
Motionless. 

Were  her  slumber  mine  instead, 
She  could  not  be  comforted: 
Streaming  tears  would  blind  her  eyes — 
Yet,  when  Dorothea  dies, 
Silent  I  wait,  with  doubt  and  dread 
Motionless. 

George  Herbert  Clarke 


70 


THE  MAN  CAME  TO  THE  MOUNTAIN 

THE  man  came  to  the  mountain 
In  the  greenest  hour  of  Spring; 

He  strummed  his  heart  for  a  banjo, 
And  he  began  to  sing: 

"  O  vast  and  stolid  mother, 

Paralytic  and  dumb, 
Give  ear  unto  my  singing; 
For  your  song  could  not  come 

"  Until  my  brain  awakened, 

Until  my  tongue  grew  flame, 
And  my  song  now  is  your  song, 
Since  out  of  you  I  came.  .    .    ., 

"  O  stooped,  decrepit  mother, 

Long  you  gave  barren  birth 
To  flameless  tree  and  blossom, 
To  mindless  beasts  of  earth; 

"  Then  from  your  brown  womb  uttered 

A  word  lettered  in  fire — 
Eyes  for  your  eyeless  darkness, 
Tongue  for  your  locked  desire. 

"  The  word  was  man.    You  plagued  him 

With  tempests  black  and  wild, 

With  cold  and  heat  and  hunger: 

For  such  things  plague  a  child. 


"  You  bound  him  slave  to  dumb  things, 

A  rod,  a  coin,  a  crown — 
But  now  his  spirit  wakens 
To  laugh  the  dumb  gods  down; 

"  And  now  his  spirit  toughens 

To  jeer  the  cold  and  heat, 
To  take  your  very  tempest 
As  bread  for  him,  and  meat; 

"  As  to  drink  to  wet  his  palate, 

As  food  to  build  him  strong; 
And  of  your  plagues  he  fashions 
Your  own  unuttered  song. 

"  Take,  then,  his  word  from  your  word; 

For  this  his  tongue  must  be 

The  voice  of  your  unspoken, 

Unyielding  liberty.  ..." 

The  mountain  shook  with  anguish 
At  sight  of  his  broken  chains; 

She  gave  her  heart  for  a  banjo, 
Strung  with  her  iron  veins; 

She  hurled  away  in  fury 

The  rod,  the  coin,  the  crown.  .    .    . 
Age  slipped  from  her  wakened  shoulders 

Like  a  garment  rumpling  down.  .    . 

The  hills  leapt  like  Bacchantes, 
With  green  dishevelled  hair, 

Until  they  came  to  the  singer 
And  sang  around  him  there: 
72 


"  Man  in  whom  God  is  living — • 
Blossom  beyond  all  plan — 
For  God  once  slept  in  the  mountains, 
But  now  he  grows  in  Man — 

"  Man  whose  insatiate  vision 
Pierces  the  furthest  haze, 
And  makes  a  sport  and  plaything 
Of  us,  ancient  of  days, — 

"  Sing,  till  the  crown  be  rusted, 

And  the  rod  be  decayed, 
And  all  gold  be  forgotten 
With  all  the  pain  it  made. 

"  Sing,  till  the  joy  of  singing 

Is  life's  first  word  and  last; 
And  life  is  a  singing  sunset 
Out  of  a  singing  past. 

"  Take  you  our  word  and  sing  it; 

Proclaim  our  liberty 
Till  that  which  is  is  altered 
To  the  rapture  that  will  be." 

Clement  Wood 


73 


TO  A  WAR  POET 

(For  Siegfried  Sassoon) 

I  STAND  before  your  grief  with  hanging,  futile 

hands, 

And  long  to  bring  you  healing,  piteous  youth; 
Yet  here  the  matter  stands: 
You  must  plow  other  lands. 

These  planted  bones  will  bear  no  flower, 
For  you  have  garnered  all  their  truth. 
Go — in  another  place,  another  hour. 
Find  a  new  power! 

Jean  Starr  Untermeyer 


74 


AN  OLD  POET 

LONG  since  his  song  was  broken  by  weight  of  toil 

and  tears, 
The  loveliness  unspoken  lost  in  the  mist  of  years. 

Is  joy  his  part,  or  sadness,  when  now  against  the 

skies, 
Like  notes  from  a  choir  of  gladness,  the  new  songs 

soar  and  rise? 

Voices  of  youth,  with  dower  of  dawn  and  life  and 

mirth, 
With  that  exultant  power  that  lifts  the  song  from 

earth. 

Does  he,  grown  old  and  tired,  grieving,  recall  that 

one 
Morn  when  he  too  aspired  to  reach  the  very  sun? 

Or  does  he  hear  rejoicing,  that  though  his  lips  are 

sealed 
These  vibrant  hearts  are  voicing  his  vision  unre- 

vealed? 

God  grant  to  him  is  given  this  joy  what  time  youth 

sings, 
So  well  assured  of  Heaven,  so  confident  of  wings. 

Theodosia  Garrison 


75 


TO  A  SUICIDE  POET 

In  Memoriam  S.  M.  B. 

(The  Facts  of  this  Story  are  Followed  Almost  Literally) 

THE  crowded  room  was  rank  with  smoke 
And  raw  with  fumes  of  drink. 
The  air  was  harsh  with  curse  and  joke; 
How  could  you  else  than  shrink? 

Was  this,  then,  life?    You  could  not  know 
That  evil  was  not  king, 
And  the  savage  law  of  blow  for  blow 
Was  not  the  only  thing. 

For  you  had  dwelt  in  youthful  dreams, 
Ethereal  regions  fair 

Of  starlight  meads  and  moonlight  streams 
Untouched  by  grief  and  care. 

You  loved  to  war  with  cleansing  seas, 
You  loved  all  kindly  mirth, 
You  peopled  with  sweet  phantasies 
Our  sordid  modern  earth. 

Your  playtime  done,  you  gladly  strove 
To  act  a  true  man's  part, 
You  were  but  plunged  amid  the  drove 
Of  tramplers  in  the  mart. 

And  then  came  war.    You  volunteered, 
Aflame  for  nobler  strife. 
With  hero  soul,  no  foe  you  feared. 
"  Ah!  here,"  you  said,  "  is  life." 
76 


They  chained  your  spirit  in  the  grime 
Of  dreary  camp  routine, 
And  two  men  pulled  you  toward  the  slime 
Where  even  love  is  unclean. 

"  We'll  make  a  man  of  you,"  they  cried, 
And  jeered  with  taunting  yell. 
"  You  won't?    All  right  then,  damn  your  pride! 
We'll  make  your  life  a  hell." 

They  kept  their  promise  well,  the  two; 
They  know,  and  God  knows,  how. 
They  tortured,  poisoned,  murdered  you. 
May  God  forgive  them  now! 

For  weeks  and  months  with  rankling  art 
They  probed  you  to  the  quick. 
They  saw  you  writhe  at  each  new  smart 
Till  all  your  soul  was  sick. 

The  tiny  room  was  thick  with  smoke 
And  raw  with  fumes  of  drink. 
From  foulest  curse  and  filthiest  joke 
You  could  not  else  than  shrink. 

Your  strength,  your  hate  were  for  the  foe. 
Half-mad  there  at  the  end, 
You  were  not  nerved  to  strike  a  blow 
And  kill  a  should-be  friend. 

Then  suddenly  you  saw  the  lands 
Where  poet  souls  belong, 
Where  rules  a  Power  that  understands, 
Where  comes  no  taint  of  wrong. 
77 


You  saw  your  spirit's  home-land  there, 
Still  lovely,  still  the  same. 
You,  all  too  gentle,  all  too  rare 
To  learn  life  as  it  came, 

You  could  no  longer  breathe  the  air 
Of  fetid  lust  and  shame. 

You  did  not  well.    But  you  were  not, 
As  we  are,  slowly  steeled 
To  bear  the  ills  our  fates  allot. 
You  broke,  you  could  not  yield. 

The  room  was  hell  and  life  was  hell, 

But  there  so  near  outside 

Was  your  own  world  where  moonbeams  dwell 

On  dream-fields  soft  and  wide. 

You  did  but  seek  your  own  once  more; 
You  fled  the  garish  light. 
You  raised  the  latch-pin,  swung  the  door, 
And  stepped  into  the  night. 

Charles  Wharton  Stork 


TO  A  DEAD  POET 

I  SPEAK  your  name — a  magic  thing — 
Jocund  April  takes  my  hand, 
Golden  birds  begin  to  sing, 
Laughter  fills  the  silver  land. 

I  speak  your  name — a  Matin  bell — 
Buoyant,  godlike,  you  arise— 
Flinging  far  the  slumber-spell 
Laid  upon  your  heart  and  eyes. 

I  speak  your  name — and  Summer's  here — 
Glad  beyond  all  Summers  gone— 
And  you  are  shining  like  the  spear 
God  fashioned  in  His  first  day's  dawn. 

Eleanor  Rogers  Cox 


79 


THREE  WHITE  BIRDS  OF  AENGUS 

A  Young  King  speaks 

LAST  night  when  all  the  stars  were  still, 
Upon  Benn  Edar's  dew-grey  hill 
I  stood,  and  watched  where  far  away 
Three  sea-birds  cleft  the  moon-white  spray; 
Three  sea-birds  like  white  flowers  tost 
Upon  the  wind,  now  seen,  now  lost, 
Now  star-bright  'mid  the  sea's  deep  black, 
Now  lost  amid  the  breaker's  wrack, 
Now  nearer,  nearer  winging  yet, 
Their  silver  course  toward  me  set, 
Their  silver  wings  that  as  they  came 
Turned  all  to  gold  and  rose-red  flame, 
Casting  upon  the  air  around 
A  music  of  such  wondrous  sound, 
So  sweetly  strange  as  on  that  shore 
Sure  mortal  never  heard  before: 
For  binding  each  bright  neck  and  wing 
A  band  of  silver  chimes  did  swing, 
Did  swing  and  sway  and  round  me  fold 
A  tremulous  thin  veil  of  gold. 
So  that,  as  one  enchanted  all 
I  heard  upon  my  spirit  fall 
A  woman's  voice,  and  where  had  been 
The  foremost  bird  there  shone  a  Queen 
Poised  half-way  'mid  the  sky  and  land, 
A  snow-white  girl  on  either  hand; 
And  "  You,  O  King,  shall  come  away 
From  Erin  with  me  on  a  day, 
80 


Shall  leave  your  loves  and  wars  behind, 
And  ride  with  me  the  singing  wind!  " 
She  chanted,  till  along  the  sea 
The  feet  of  Morn  came  whisperingly. 

Eleanor  Rogers  Cox 


81 


I  THINK  OF  HIM  AS  ONE  WHO  FIGHTS 

You  think  of  him  as  one  who  fails, 
I  think  of  him  as  one  who  fights, 
Who  goes  on  strange  adventurous  ways 
Through  tortured  days  and  dangerous  nights. 

You  know  him  by  the  fallen  flesh 
The  cruel  trap  where  he  was  caught, 
I  know  him  by  the  lifted  brow 
And  by  the  Cause  for  which  he  fought. 

And  he  went  first  and  he  went  far 
With  glorious  banners  lifted  high — 
And  you  and  I'll  have  different  ways 
Of  judging  him,  until  we  die. 

For  if  he  wins  or  if  he  falls — 
I  know  'tis  written  in  God's  laws 
That  he  who  fights  on  the  right  side 
Shall  wear  the  splendor  of  the  Cause. 

You  know  him  by  the  grievous  wound 
And  by  the  earth  on  which  he  lies — 
I  know  him  by  the  patient  worth 
And  the  deep  sadness  of  his  eyes. 

You  judge  him  by  the  hostile  mood 
Which  was  the  Devil's  battle  shout, 
I  judge  him  by  his  quest  for  God 
And  by  the  things  he  prays  about. 
82 


And  you  shall  have  your  place  of  pride 
With  lifted  banner  glittering  bright— 
But  the  whole  earth  shall  hear  him  speak 
Of  One  who  raised  him  in  the  night. 

And  you  shall  stay  in  Heaven — perchance — 
With  righteous  souls  that  do  not  err, 
But  he  shall  come  to  earth  again 
And  comfort  with  the  Comforter. 

You  think  of  him  as  one  who  fails, 
I  think  of  him  as  one  who  fights — 
Who  ventures  steep  and  perilous  ways 
Through  tortured  days  and  dangerous  nights. 
Anna  Hemp  stead  Branch 


DUOVIR 

I  KNOW — as  you — a  man  who  is  two  men 
Companioned  by  diverse  ancestral  strains 
In  one  gaunt  awkward  body  that  must  needs 
Attempt  to  serve  them  both  incessantly; 
One,  scion  of  a  long-forgotten  god 
Who  herded  clouds  and  stars  and  warded  trees 
And  tended  tides  and  tamed  mad  rivers  ere 
The  engineers  had  learned  the  simplest  arts, 
And  who  to  give  him  home  upon  the  earth 
Amid  his  officed  tasks,  leading  his  flocks 
From  sea  through  forests  to  the  mountain  crests, 
Wedded  an  Aryan  maid  whose  father  dwelt 
Upon  a  hill  above  the  highest  spring, 
Commanding  view  of  mountain,  sea  and  sky. — 
So  had  the  first  his  soul  and  name  from  her 
Who  lived,  god-visited,  upon  the  heights. 

The  other  boasted  his  descent  from  one 
Who  ruled  by  might  upon  the  isle  where  now 
A  king-born  man  rules  but  in  name  alone — 
A  practic  lord  who  built  great  Thorfin's  walls, 
Progenitor  of  those  who  habit  towns, 
Who  fashion,  barter,  carry  and  control, 
Masters  of  men  who  fight  and  toil  and  save; 
Makers  of  things  that  clothe  and  house  and  feed; 
Careless  of  cloud  and  star  except  as  they 
Replenish  wells  or  guide  the  errant  ships. 

Each  was  the  heritor  of  vast  estates 
That  stretched  divergent  back  from  every  day; 

84 


On  one  side  towards  the  Halcyon  Grecian  isles; 
And  on  the  other  toward  the  mists  that  brood 
Above  the  northern  fjords;  nor  mingle  till 
They  come  convergent  near  the  far-off  gate 
Whence  Adam  came  all  flushed  and  frightened  forth 
And  Eve  beside  him  weeping  sore. 

So  got 

Of  god  and  cosmic  clay,  and  so  endowed, 
These  diversivolent  duoviri, 
As  one  big  homely  human  avatar, 
Tried  each  with  each  to  do  their  double  best 
Twixt  dream  and  deed — poet  and  pragmatist, 
Mystic  and  potent  manager  of  men. 

One  loved  the  solitude,  the  forest  paths, 
The  lonely  night,  the  voices  of  the  stars, 
The  rain  upon  the  roof,  the  scent  of  trees, 
The  light  upon  the  hills,  the  open  road. 

The  other  cared  for  crowds  and  comradeship, 
The  bustling  streets,  the  plauding  multitudes, 
The  council  hall,  the  camp,  the  battle-field, 
The  glare  and  tumult  of  the  victory. 

Together,  they  were  Man  upon  his  way 
From  God  to  God,  summing  the  race  that's  been 
But  giving  glimpse  of  a  diviner  grace 
Than  has  evolved — (or  will,  if  we  accept 
The  teaching  of  the  biologic  mind 
That  sees  his  evolution  at  an  end) — 
Than  has  evolved,  but  will;  for  soul  is  bound 
To  mould  such  body  as  its  needs  require 

85 


To  bear  it  toward  the  goal  it  seeks — 
Else  why  were  clay  uplifted  to  this  height 
If  it  can  never  reach  the  higher  height, 
The  image  it  would  make  of  God  in  Man? 

John  Finley 


86 


PRAISE 

Dedicated  to  the  memory  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe  and 
Sidney  Lanier,  two  poets  of  the  South 

I  HAVE  not  labored  for  the  praise  of  men 
And  have  not  won  it.    I  must  work  alone, 
A  friend  of  trees  and  rivers  and  grey  skies, 
A  friend  of  humble  folk  who  never  hear 
The  chatter  of  the  very  nearly  great 
And  do  not  buy  their  beauty  with  their  bread, 
But  are  content  to  take  it,  as  they  think, 
From  the  very  hand  of  God.    I  work  alone. 
Though  I  have  talked  with  many  famous  men 
They  have  not  heard  my  voice,  nor  answered  me. 
There  is  more  warmth  in  winter  than  in  these 
Who  must  go  fading  down  the  skies  of  time, 
Poor  ghosts  of  glory,  paling  to  an  ash, 
A  hundred  years  or  world  away  from  me. 

I  dare  not  say  that  I  am  too  devout 
In  worship  of  a  far  and  final  thing 
To  care  for  what  is  near  at  hand  to-day. 
How  often  loneliness  has  humbled  me 
To  crave  the  pleasant  speaking  of  an  hour 
As  men  crave  wealth  in  poverty,  drink  in  fever, 
Or  love  in  the  hungry  innocence  of  youth ! 
How  often,  when  I  am  humble,  I  could  say, 
"  O  world  of  people,  give  me  but  a  word 
To  fall  like  sunlight  on  my  weariness, 
And  to  make  fertile  all  my  dust  of  days!  " 

But  always,  long  before  I  speak  the  words, 
I  whip  my  soul  for  this  humility 

87 


With  thongs  of  scorn,  and  lock  my  jaws  and  go 
To  hide  my  need  where  the  green  valleys  are, 
Making  my  pride  the  master  of  my  soul. 
And  pride  alone  can  make  me  stand  erect 
Under  my  zenith,  stubborn  in  the  sun, 
Though  I  may  not  be  proud  even  of  my  pride 
Since  it  is  shadowed  by  a  deadly  fear. 

Praise  is  the  final  peril  of  the  great, 
Praise  is  too  fat  a  food,  too  strong  a  drink, 
Making  men  gluttonous  and  bibulous 
So  that  they  can  not  bear  the  length  of  days 
Sturdily  on  the  shoulders  of  their  souls, 
So  that  they  can  not  go,  like  athletes  striding, 
Across  the  wilderness  of  their  desires; 
And  I  can  scorn  this  food  and  drink  because 
I  have  held  cup  and  platter  out  to  men 
Myself,  and  heard  their  noisy  swallowing. 
I  have  seen  them  reeling  in  their  drunkenness 
Who  scarcely  knew  that  they  had  drunk  at  all! 

Therefore,  you  mighty  dead,  whom  I  may  praise 
Without  the  fear  that  I  may  poison  you, 
Without  suspicion  of  a  thought  of  gain, 
Be  in  me,  like  the  prophets  and  the  law, 
Like  light  of  sun  and  stars,  like  thrilling  rain, 
Or  angry  lightning,  like  Emanuel, 
If  I  must  have  men's  praise  before  I  die, 
That  I  may  bless  the  food  and  be  made  strong 
And  pour  the  wine  before  the  feet  of  men. 
And  be  a  secret  power  in  me  now 
While  I  have  need  to  arm  myself  with  pride, 
88 


A  warrior  who  may  fall  upon  a  sword 

In  utter  loneliness  at  last,  and  die, 

Not  strong  enough  to  fight  a  world  of  pain, 

Nor  coward  enough  to  want  the  help  of  friends. 

I  have  not  labored  for  the  praise  of  men 
And  have  not  won  it.    I  must  stand  alone 
Against  a  storm  no  tree  need  ever  bend  to, 
Against  a  cold  that  holds  no  river  fast 
From  bank  to  bank  in  the  white  days  of  winter, 
Against  a  darkness,  darker,  more  profound 
Than  any  that  the  skies  of  night  have  known. 
If,  in  the  end,  my  own  voice  praises  me, 
Myself  must  be  content  in  my  deep  home 
With  every  peril  overborne  at  last 
And  loneliness  forgotten  in  long  peace. 

Marguerite  Wilkinson 


SAUL 

"  And  they  put  his  armor  in  the  House  of  Ashtoreth." 
— I  SAMUEL,  xxxi,  10. 

WEEP  for  the  one  so  strong  to  slay,  whom  One  has 

taken  at  last! 
Mourn  for  the  mail  that  rings  no  more  and  the  ruin 

unforecast! 
This  was  he  of  the  flaming  heart  and  the  deep,  heroic 

breath, 
Whose  sword  is  laid  and  his  armor  hung  in  the  House 

of  Ashtoreth. 


Weep  for  the  one  so  swift  to  slay,  whose  knees  have 

bent  to  the  night! 
Dust  is  thick  on  his  thresholds  now,  tho  trumpets  call 

to  the  fight. 
Slinger  and  bowman  gather  fast,  but  our  strong  man 

does  not  come. 
Captains  long  for  his  counsels  now,  but  the  sated 

lips  are  dumb. 


Cry  his  name  in  the  citadel,  sending  the  runners 

forth; 
The  South  gives  back  no  rumor  of  him;  in  vain  they 

question  the  North. 
Seek  him  not  where  the  wall  is  held  or  the  spears 

go  in  to  death, 
Whose  shield  is  laid  and  his  armor  hung  in  the  House 

of  Ashtoreth. 

90 


This  was  he  grown  mighty  in  war,  but  her  war  is 

otherwise; 
Swords  that  flash  from  her  bosom  bared,  arrows 

cast  from  her  eyes. 
Who  shall  stoop  from  her  javelin  thrown,  who  from 

her  singing  dart? 
Her  sudden  shaft  is  hot  in  his  loins,  her  steel  in  his 

maddened  heart. 

Deep  in  the  still  and  altared  dusk  her  lamp  glows 

small  and  red, 
Mirrored  clear  in  the  great  cuirass,  like  the  rubies  of 

her  bed; 
Blood  of  light  on  his  burnished  helm,  on  the  belt 

and  the  greaves,  one  saith 
Whose  spear  is  laid  and  his  armor  hung  in  the  House 

of  Ashtoreth. 

Tho  Gath  go  up  to  the  threshing-floors,  or  hosts 

assemble  at  Tyre, 
Wait  no  more  for  your  prince's  word,  who  has  taken 

his  desire. 
Cities  and  fields  and  given  hearts,  honor  and  life 

were  weighed, 
The  balance  shown  and  the  end  foreseen  and  the 

deep  decision  made. 

Weep  for  the  one  so  strong  in  war,  whose  war  is 

now  of  the  Dark! 
Well  he  harnessed  his  breast  with  steel,  but  her 

arrows  find  their  mark. 


Her  hands  have  loosened  the  brazen  belt  and  her 

breath  has  found  his  breath, 
Whose  sword  is  laid  and  his  armor  hung  in  the  House 

of  Ashtoreth. 

George  Sterling 


92 


THE  WINDOW 

HE  knew  that  he  was  dying.      They  had  said, 

Seeing  his  eyes  closed,  it  could  not  be  long. 

Motionless  on  the  white  enamelled  bed, 

He  let  them  smooth  the  pillows  at  his  head 

And  wondered  if  the  twisting  of  the  prong 

That  pierced  his  tired  loins  would  ever  stop. 

He  wanted  few  things  now,  and  nothing  quite 

So  much  as  this: — to  have  the  shaded  light 

Put  out,  and  that  dark  blind  raised  to  the  top. 

Perhaps  they'd  do  it  soon,  he  thought.    The  night 

Was  almost  over  and  he'd  see  again 

The  panorama  of  the  window-pane, 

So  like  a  running  ribbon;  the  one  thread, 

Now  worn  so  thin,  that  kept  him  from  the  dead. 

He  tried  to  sleep,  but  started  in  to  count 
The  days  that  he  had  watched  that  window-frame 
Bring  life  into  his  room,  but  the  amount 
Was  more  than  he  could  master.    And  the  same 
Desire  took  hold  of  him: — to  raise  the  blind 
(Though  it  was  black  out  there)  and  see  behind 
The  darkness  if  he  could;  to  pierce  the  vast 
And  crouching  mystery;  to  grope  and  tear 
Some  answer  from  the  silence.    He  could  bear 
The  mockery  of  his  pain,  but  now  at  last 
He'd  have  an  end  of  riddles;  he  would  know 
What  the  elaborate  subterfuge  was  for. 
The  shade  seemed  very  near,  it  was  a  door 
Already  opening  ...  A  steady  glow 
Swept  through  his  body,  and  he  thought  he  stood 

93 


Raising  the  window  as  a  great  wind  blew 

Old  things  into  his  mind,  things  that  he  knew 

But  had  forgot.    He  trembled  as  he  felt 

Bells  in  the  -night,  bells  ringing  in  his  blood. 

A  light  came  singing  .    .    .  towered  .    .    .  broke 

in  two — 
And  struck  him  suddenly  .    .    . 

The  doctor  knelt 

To  catch  the  falling  hands.    "  I  think  he's  through; 
I  said  by  daylight  surely — and  you  see  "  .    .    . 

Under  the  blind,  hanging  a  bit  askew, 

The  fingers  of  the  sun  groped  timidly 

And  touched  an  opening  eye-lid.    He  could  be 

Contented  now;  the  sash  was  raised  up  high. 

He  saw  the  tree  that  always  grew  awry 

Had  new  buds  on  it.    He  could  tell  the  sweet 

Taste  of  the  morning  air,  the  steady  beat 

Of  unseen  wings  tipped  with  that  dazzling  sky. 

This  was  the  moment  that  he  meant  to  die  ... 

A  crowd  of  boys  came  whistling  up  the  street, 

And,  at  the  challenge  of  their  happy  feet, 

He  knew  that  he  must  live  and  wondered  why. 

Louis  Untermeyer 


94 


VIRGILIA 

i 

HAD  we  two  gone  down  the  world  together, 

I  had  made  fair  ways  for  the  feet  of  Song, 

And  the  world's  fang  been  but  a  foam-soft  feather, 
The  world  that  works  us  wrong. 

If  you  had  but  stayed  when  the  old  sweet  wonder 
Was  a  precious  pain  in  my  pulsing  side! 

Ah,  why  did  you  hurry  our  lives  asunder — 
You,  born  to  be  my  bride? 

What  sent  it  upon  me — my  soul  importunes — 
All  the  grief  of  the  world  in  a  little  span, 

All  the  tears  and  fears,  all  the  fates  and  fortunes, 
That  the  heart  holds  for  a  man? 

Is  this  then  the  grief  that  the  first  gods  kneaded 
Into  all  joy  that  the  strange  world  brings? 

Did  the  tears  fall  into  the  heap  unheeded, 
These  tears  in  mortal  things? 

But  why  was  it  that  the  whole  world  wasted, 

This  you  will  know  when  they  count  the  tears, 

After  the  dust  of  the  grave  is  tasted, 
After  this  noise  of  years. 

Yet  some  things  stay  though  a  world  lies  broken, 
I  keep  some  things  that  were  dear  of  old — 

That  first  kiss  spared  and  that  last  word  spoken 
And  the  glint  of  your  hair's  dark  gold. 

Copyright  secured  to  the  author.     Published  by  permission 
of  Edwin  Markham. 

95 


Do  you  mind  that  hour  in  the  soft  sweet  morning 
When  I  held  you  fast  in  divine  alarms, 

When  my  soul  stood  up  like  a  god  adorning 
His  body  with  bright  arms? 

Forget  it  not  till  the  crowns  are  crumbled 

And  the  swords  of  the  kings  are  rent  with  rust — 

Forget  it  not  till  the  hills  lie  humbled, 
And  the  springs  of  the  seas  run  dust. 

n 
What  was  I  back  in  the  world's  first  wonder? — 

An  elf-child  found  on  an  ocean-reef, 
A  sea-child  nursed  by  the  surge  and  thunder, 

And  marked  for  the  lyric  grief. 

I  mind  me  well  how  the  wave's  edge  whitened 

As  the  shapes  of  the  storm  went  whirling  by — 

How  I  laughed  and  ran  when  the  loud  void  lightened, 
And  tempest  shook  the  sky. 

So  I  will  go  down  by  the  way  of  the  willows, 
And  whisper  it  out  to  the  mother  Sea, 

To  the  soft  sweet  shores  and  the  long  bright  billows, 
The  dream  that  cannot  be. 

There  will  be  help  for  the  soul's  great  trouble 

Where  the  sea's  heart  sings  to  the  listening  ear, 

Where  the  high  gray  cliff  in  the  pool  hangs  double, 
And  the  moon  is  misting  the  mere. 

'Twas  down  in  the  sea  that  your  soul  took  fashion, 
O  strange  Love  born  of  the  white  sea-wave! 

And  only  the  sea  and  her  lyric  passion 
Can  ease  the  wound  you  gave. 
96 


I  will  go  down  to  the  wide  wild  places, 

Where  the  calm  cliffs  look  on  the  shores  around: 

I  will  rest  in  the  power  of  their  great  grave  faces 
And  the  gray  hush  of  the  ground. 

On  a  cliff's  high  head  a  gray  gull  clamors, 

But  down  at  the  base  is  the  Devil's  brew, 

And  the  swing  of  arms  and  the  heave  of  hammers, 
And  the  white  flood  roaring  through. 

There  on  the  cliff  is  the  sea-bird's  tavern, 

And  there  with  the  wild  things  I'll  find  a  home, 

Laugh  with  the  lightning,  shout  with  the  cavern, 
Run  with  the  feathering  foam. 

I  will  climb  down  where  the  nests  are  hanging 

And  the  young  birds  scream  to  the  swinging  deep, 

Where  the  rocks  and  the  iron  winds  are  clanging, 
And  the  long  waves  lift  and  leap. 

I  will  thread  the  shores  to  the  cavern  hollows, 

Where  the  edge  of  the  wave  runs  white  and  thin: 

I  will  sing  to  the  surge  and  the  foam  that  follows 
When  the  dark  tides  thunder  in. 

I  will  go  out  where  the  sea-birds  travel, 

And  mix  my  soul  with  the  wind  and  sea; 

Let  the  green  waves  weave  and  the  gray  rains  ravel, 
And  the  tides  go  over  me. 

The  Sea  is  the  mother  of  songs  and  sorrows, 

And  out  of  her  wonder  our  wild  loves  come; 

And  so  it  will  be  through  the  long  to-morrows, 
Till  all  our  lips  are  dumb. 
97 


She  knows  all  sighs  and  she  knows  all  sinning, 
And  they  whisper  out  in  her  breaking  wave: 

She  has  known  it  all  since  the  far  beginning, 
Since  the  grief  of  that  first  grave. 

She  shakes  the  heart  with  her  stars  and  thunder 
And  her  soft  low  word  when  the  winds  are  late; 

For  the  sea  is  Woman,  the  sea  is  Wonder — 
Her  other  name  is  Fate! 

There  is  daring  and  dream  in  her  billows  breaking — 
In  the  power  of  her  beauty  our  griefs  forget: 

She  can  ease  the  heart  of  the  long,  long  aching, 
And  bury  old  regret. 

m 

Will  you  find  rest  as  our  ways  dissever? 

Will  the  gladness  grow  as  the  days  increase? 
Howbeit,  I  leave  on  your  soul  forever 

The  word  of  the  eternal  peace. 

I  will  go  the  road  and  my  song  shall  save  me, 

Though  grief  may  stay  as  the  heart's  old  guest: 

I  will  finish  the  work  that  the  strange  God  gave  me, 
And  then  pass  on  to  rest. 

I  will  go  back  to  the  great  world-sorrow, 

To  the  millions  bearing  the  double  load — 

The  fate  of  to-day  and  the  fear  of  to-morrow: 
I  will  taste  the  dust  of  the  road. 

I  will  go  back  to  the  pains  and  the  pities 

That  break  the  heart  of  the  world  with  moan: 

I  will  forget  in  the  grief  of  the  cities 
The  burden  of  my  own. 

98 


There  in  the  world-grief  my  own  grief  humbles, 
My  wild  hour  melts  in  the  days  to  be; 

As  the  wild  white  foam  of  a  river  crumbles, 
Forgotten  in  the  sea. 

Edwin  Markham 


99 


AFTERTHOUGHTS 

WE  parted  where  the  old  gas-lamp  still  burned 
Under  the  wayside  maple  and  walked  on, 
Into  the  dark,  as  we  had  always  done; 
And  I,  no  doubt,  if  he  had  not  returned, 
Might  yet  be  unaware  that  he  had  earned 
More  than  earth  gives  to  many  who  have  won 
More  than  it  has  to  give  when  they  are  gone — 
As  duly  and  indelibly  I  learned. 

The  sum  of  all  that  he  came  back  to  say 
Was  little  then,  and  would  be  less  to-day: 
With  him  there  were  no  Delphic  heights  to  climb, 
Yet  his  were  somehow  nearer  the  sublime. 
He  spoke,  and  went  again  by  the  old  way — 
Not  knowing  it  would  be  for  the  last  time. 

Edwin  Arlington  Robinson 


ICO 


A  LESSON  TO  MY  GHOST 

SHALL  it  be  said  that  the  wind's  gone  over 

The  hill  this  night,  and  no  ghost  there? 

Not  the  shape  of  an  old-time  lover 

Pacing  the  old  road,  the  high  road  there? 

By   the   peacock  tree,   the  tree   that   spreads   its 

branches 

Like  a  proud  peacock's  tail  (so  my  lady  says), 
Under  a  cloudy  sky,  while  the  moon  launches 
Scattered  beams  of  light  along  the  dark  silences? 
I  will  be  a  ghost  there,  though  I  yet  am  breathing, 
A  living  presence  still  in  tight  cottage  walls, 
Sitting  by  the  fire  whose  smoke  goes  wreathing 
Over  fields  and  farmyards  and  farmyard  stalls. 
As  a  player  going  to  rehearse  his  faring, 
I  will  be  my  ghost  there  before  my  bones  are  dust. 
Bid  it  learn  betimes  the  sock  it  shall  be  wearing 
When  it  bids  the  clay  good-bye  as  all  ghosts  must. 
Hush,  then;  upstairs  sleep  my  lady  and  her  mother; 
The  cat  curls  the  night  away,  and  will  not  stir; 
Beams  of  lamp  and  beech-log  cross  one  another, 
No  wind  walks  in  the  garden  there. 
Go,  my  ghost,  it  calls  you,  the  high  road,  the  winding, 
Written  by  the  moonlight  on  the  sleeping  hill; 
I  will  watch  the  ashes,  you  go  finding 
The  way  you  shall  walk  for  generations  still. 
The  window-latch  is  firm,   the  curtain   does   not 

tremble, 

The  wet  grass  bends  not  under  your  tread, 
Brushing  you  shake  not  the  dew  from  the  bramble, 
They  hear  no  gate  who  lie  abed. 

101 


Nodding  I  stare  at  the  hearth,  but  I  see  you, 

My  half-wit  travels  with  you  the  road; 

There  shall  be  your  kingdom  when  death  shall  free 

you, 

When  body's  wit  is  neither  leash  nor  goad. 
Past  the  peacock  branches  proudly  gliding, 
Your  own  ghost  now,  I  know,  I  know, 
You  look  to  the  moon  on  the  hill-top  riding, 
The  mares  in  the  meadow  sleep  as  you  go, 
Your  eyes  that  are  dark  yet  great  for  divining 
Brood  on  the  valleys  of  wood  and  plough, 
And  you  stand  where  the  silver  flower  is  shining 
Of  cherry  against  the  black  holly  bough. 
Rehearse,  O  rehearse,  as  you  pass  by  the  hedgerows, 
Remembrance  of  all  that  was  my  bright  will, 
That  so  my  grave  of  whispers  and  echoes 
May  rest  for  the  ghost  that  is  yet  on  the  hill. 
The  primroses  burn  and  the  cowslips  cover 
The  starry  meadows  as  heaven  is  clad, 
Learn  them  all,  O  ghost,  as  a  lover, 
So  shall  your  coming  again  be  glad. 
The  inn-sign  hangs  in  the  windless  watches, 
You  pass  the  shadowy  piles  of  stone 
Under  the  walls  where  the  hawthorn  catches 
Shapes  from  the  moon  that  are  not  its  own. 
Wander,  wander  down  by  the  cresses, 
Over  the  crest  of  the  hill,  between 
The  brown  lych-gate  and  the  cider  presses, 
Pass  the  well  and  across  the  green. 
Heed  me,  my  ghost,  my  heir.    To-morrow, 
Or  soon,  my  body  to  ash  must  fall, 
Heed  me,  my  ghost,  my  heir.    To-morrow, 

1 02 


Heed  me,  ghost,  and  I  shall  not  sorrow — 
Learn  this  beauty,  O  learn  it  all. 
Night  goes  on,  the  beech-log's  ended, 
Half-wit's  drowsy,  and  doctrine  done, — 
Ghost,  come  home  from  the  road;  befriended 
My  moon  shall  be  when  I  leave  the  sun. 

John  Drinkwater 


103 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  ROAD 

Now  my  thick  years  bend  your  back. 
Cut  the  thongs  that  hold  the  pack 

Merrily,  merrily  .    .    . 

I  will  not  be  sad  again. 

I  will  strip  myself  of  pain 

And  go  singing  as  of  old. 

Though  my  hands  are  thin  to  hold, 

Though  my  hair  is  pale  as  sand, 

And  I  shiver  as  I  stand, 

I  am  not  so  short  of  breath 

As  to  strangle  you  to  death.  .    .   . 

Why  should  you  go  crook'd  for  me? 
Shake  yourself  and  run!   run  free! 
No.    It's  long  enough  you  ache 
Borrowing  years  for  my  stiff  sake. 
No.    I  do  not  need  you  now.  .    .    . 

Toss  the  wild  hair  from  your  brow: 
Run!  while  roads  and  city-smoke 
Beckon  young  dream- worthy  folk, 
Why  should  I  be  lonely?    See, 
The  old  sun  shines  to  comfort  me, 
And  the  small  old  hours  dance 
Lovely  with  all  lost  romance. 
I  have  needed  time  to  dream, — 
But  you  must  run,  and  grow,  and  gleam, 

Merrily!    Merrily! 
104 


And  if  you  come  back  to  find 
No  one  here  but  sun  and  wind, 
Think,  '  He  did  not  fail  away 
Cringing  like  a  beast  at  bay, 
But  like  an  eagle  or  a  star, 
Lost  by  flying  far, — so  far!  ' 

(God  forgive  me  if  I  lie.  .    .    . 

All  I  love  in  life,  good-bye.  .    .    .) 

Look!  the  long  road  and  the  sky!    .    .    . 
Merrily!     Merrily!    .    .    . 

Fannie  Stearns  Gijford 


105 


TO  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA 

No  summer  rose  my  life — 'Tis  like  a  tree, 
An  ancient  tree  which  holds  an  empty  nest, 
Apples  a  few  on  topmost  boughs,  the  rest 
Sun-dried,  or  strawn  neglected  on  the  lea. 

What  fitting  tribute  can  I  pay  to  thee? 
How  much  I  love  thee,  let  those  years  attest, 
Those  twenty  years  I  served  thee  with  my  best, 
Poor  best,  perhaps,  but  all  that  lay  in  me. 

Twice  twenty  years  I  tilled  another  field — 
Another?    Nay.    To  me  the  two  were  one; 
Love  would  not  see  the  distance  on  the  map 
And  bade  me  count  whate'er  I  reaped  thy  yield; 
And  now  that  all  my  work  in  life  is  done, 
Dear  Mother,  let  me  sleep  upon  thy  lap. 

Basil  L.  Gildersleeve 


106 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  IRELAND  CONSIDERS  HER 
HERITAGE 

Who  speaks  in  the  name  of  Ireland  speaks  in  my 
name. 

I  AM  one  with  the  spray  blown  upward  from  waves 

that  break 
On  the  rocks  below  me;  one  with  the  cry  of  the 

sea-gull, 

The  call  of  the  curlew;  one  with  the  grass 
Dark  green  on  peaks  of  the  headland. 

I  am  one  with  the  smoke  curling  thin  from  the  valley 

chimneys 
Of  thatched  roofs  dwarfed  by  the  mountain,  and  one 

with  the  lake 
Whose  waters  are  quiet  at  sunset,  whose  foliage 

shores 
Are  shrouded  in  silence  of  evening. 

Bodies  of  cleric  and  soldier,  trampled,  forgotten, 
And  tossed  aside  by  the  ploughshare;  war  shouts  of 

rovers; 
The  grating  of  swords;   slaughter  of  Dane  and  of 

Saxon — 
These  are  as  one  in  my  life-blood. 

Defenders  who  stood  on  the  ramparts  and  towers  of 

Derry: 
Men  who  fought  for  King  James  on  the  bridge  oi 

Athlone  and  at  Aughrim; 
107 


Men  who  heartened  King  Albert,  and  seamen  who 

watched  on  the  oceans — 
These  are  a  part  of  my  heritage. 

One  with  the  beauty  and  one  with  the  honor  of  Erin, 
One  with  her  past,  her  present,  and  one  with  her 

future, 
Shall  I  heed  those  who  rend  her  asunder,  who  bring 

her  to  madness 
By  will  of  the  reivers  of  Belgium? 

Who  speaks  in  the  name  of  Ireland  speaks  in  my 
name. 

Norreys  Jephson  O'Conor 


108 


IN  AN  ORIENTAL  SHOP 

WITH  you  and  song  I  do  not  count  the  days, 
For  even  centuries  would  not  seem  long, 
But  all  too  short  a  time  in  which  to  praise 

Both  you  and  song. 

Here  hang  embroideries  from  far  Hong  Kong, 
Storks  and  white  lilies  lost  in  golden  maze, 
A  wondrous  junk  the  lily-pads  among — 

Rare  treasures  garnered  from  the  twilight  haze 
Of  time  forgotten.    I  strike  a  temple  gong, 
And  from  old  music  weave  new  roundelays 

Of  you  and  song. 

Norreys  Jephson  O'Conor 


109 


SILVER  WEDDING 

IN  the  middle  of  the  night  he  started  up 

At  a  cry  from  his  sleeping  Bride, — 

A  bat  from  some  ruin  in  a  heart  he'd  never  searched, 

Nay,  hardly  seen  inside : 

"  Want  me  and  take  me  for  the  woman  that  I  am 

"  And  not  for  her  that  died, 

"  The  lovely  chit  nineteen  I  one  time  was, 

"  And  am  no  more  " — she  cried. 

Ralph  Hodgson 


no 


TO  A  GREEK  MARBLE 

WHITE  grave  goddess, 

Pity  my  sadness, 
O  silence  of  Paros. 

I  am  not  of  these  about  thy  feet, 

These  garments  and  decorum; 

I  am  thy  brother, 

The  lover  of  aforetime  crying  to  thee, 

And  thou  hearest  me  not. 

I  have  whispered  thee  in  thy  solitudes 

Of  our  loves  in  Phyrgia, 

The  far  ecstasy  of  burning  noons 

When  the  fragile  pipes 

Ceased  in  the  cypress  shade, 

And  the  brown  fingers  of  the  shepherd 

Moved  over  slim  shoulders; 

And  only  the  cicada  sang. 

I  have  told  thee  of  the  hills 

And  the  lisp  of  reeds 

And  the  sun  upon  thy  breasts, 

And  thou  hearest  me  not, 
Thou  hearest  me  not. 

Richard  Aldington 


in 


ON  AN  OLD  HYMN  BOOK 

The  hands  that  turned  the  pages,  long  ago, 

Of  this  old  hymnal,  were  they  young  or  old? 

They  were  a  woman's — see,  the  dim  leaves  fold 

A  rusted  needle!  small  the  eye;  we  know 

No  man  could  thread  it,  nor  might  old  eyes  show 

The  narrow  way:  then,  too,  old  hands  are  cold. 

Hence,  she  was  young,  blue-eyed,  with  hair  of 

gold? 

Brunette?    Maybe,  none  lives  who  light  might  throw. 
These  pages  reek  of  sinners  and  their  hell. 
What  were  her  thoughts  when  these  sad  hymns 

were  sung? 

Stained  are  the  leaves — blest  by  her  virgin  tears? 
Shrined  she  his  violets,  to  keep  them  well? 
Ah,  they  are  dust,  these  two,  who  once  were 

young — 
Dust,  in  the  wreckage  of  an  hundred  years. 

Henry  Aylett  Sampson 


112 


THE  TWO  ROSALINDS 

i 

THE  dubious  daylight  ended, 
And  I  walked  the  Town  alone,  unminding  whither 

bound  and  why, 
As  from  each  gaunt  street  and  gaping  square  a  mist 

of  light  ascended 
And  dispersed  upon  the  sky. 

ii 

Files  of  evanescent  faces 
Passed  each  other  without  heeding,  in  their  travail, 

teen,  or  joy, 
Some  in  void  unvisioned  listlessness  inwrought  with 

pallid  traces 
Of  keen  penury's  annoy. 

HI 

Nebulous  flames  in  crystal  cages 
Gleamed  as  if  with  discontent  at  city  movement, 

murk,  and  grime, 
And  as  waiting  some  procession  of  great  ghosts  from 

bygone  ages 
To  exalt  the  ignoble  time. 

IV 

In  a  colonnade  high-lighted 
By  a  thoroughfare  where  stern  utilitarian  traffic 

dinned, 
On  a  red  and  white  emblazonment  of  players  and 

parts,  I  sighted 
The  name  of  "  Rosalind," 

By  permission  of  Thomas  Hardy  and  The  Macmillan  Com 
pany. 


V 

And  her  famous  mates  of  "  Arden," 
Who  observed  no  stricter  customs  than  "  the  seasons' 

difference  "  bade, 
Who  lived  with  running  brooks  for  books  in  Nature's 

wildwood  garden, 
And  called  idleness  their  trade  .... 

VI 

Now  the  poster  stirred  an  ember 
Still  remaining  from  my  ardours  of  some  forty  years 

before, 
When  the  selfsame  portal  on  an  eve  it  thrilled  me  to 

remember 
A  like  announcement  bore; 

vn 

And  expectantly  I  had  entered, 
And  had  first  beheld  in  human  mould  a  Rosalind 

woo  and  plead, 
On  whose  transcendent  figuring  my  speedy  soul  had 

centred 
As  it  had  been  she  indeed  . 


vrrr 

So;  all  other  plans  discarding, 
I  resolved  on  entrance,  bent  on  seeing  what  I  once 

had  seen, 

And  approached  the  gangway  of  my  earlier  knowl 
edge,  disregarding 
The  expanse  of  time  between. 
114 


rx 

"  The  words,  sir?  "  cried  a  creature 
Hovering  'twixt  the  shine  and  shade  as  mid  the 

live  world  and  the  tomb; 
But  the  well-known  numbers  needed  not  for  me  a 

text  or  teacher 
To  revive  and  re-illume. 

x 

In  I  went.  .    .    .   But  how  unfitted 
Was  this  Rosalind! — a  mammet  quite  to    me,  in 

memories  nurst, 
And  with  chilling  disappointment  soon  I  sought  the 

street  I  had  quitted, 
To  re-ponder  on  the  first. 

XI 

The  hag  still  hawked, — I  met  her 
Just  without  the  colonnade.     "  So  you  don't  like 

her,  sir?  "  said  she, 
"Ah — I  was  once  that  Rosalind! —    I  acted  her — 

none  better — 
Yes,  in  eighteen  sixty-three. 

XII 

"  Thus  I  won  Orlando  to  me 
In  my  then  triumphant  days  when  I  had  charm 

and  maidenhood, 
Now  some  forty  years  ago. — I  used  to  say,  Come 

woo  me,  woo  me!  " 
And  she  struck  the  attitude. 


xm 

It  was  when  I  had  gone  there  nightly; 
And  the  voice — though  raucous  now — was  yet  the 

old  one. — Clear  as  noon 
My  Rosalind  was  here.  .    .    .  Thereon  the  band 

withinside  lightly 
Beat  up  a  merry  tune. 

Thomas  Hardy 


116 


THE  SOUL  OF  THE  LITTLE  ROOM 

SWEET  room,  dear  loved  of  all  my  people,  where 
The  blue-tiled  hearth  has  held  the  leaping  flare 
Of  singing  logs  whose  hearts  still  keep  the  dead 
Enchanted  melody  of  birds  long  fled, 
And  where  with  understanding  friends  my  folk 
Have  watched  the  tapestry  of  flame,  and  spoke 
Slow  musing  thoughts,  the  while  with  gentle  chime 
The  clock  made  audible  the  flight  of  time, 
Hast  thou  no  spirit?    Here  on  summer  days 
The  wind  on  tip-toe  feet  comes  in  and  plays 
Now  with  the  curtain,  now  a  lady's  hair, 
Then,  fitful,  sweep  slow  fingers  here  and  there, 
Like  some  unseen  and  silent  child  who  quests 
With  eager  hands  this  little  world.    Here  rests 
The  peace  of  tranquil  years.    Dear  little  place, 
Hast  thou  no  soul  to  guess  thine  own  sweet  grace? 

One  child  who  dreamed  and  laughed,  suffered  and 

grew 

Herein  to  womanhood  believes  it  true 
Thou  hast  a  soul,  distilled  from  all  the  years, 
A  heart  made  slowly  up  from  all  the  fears, 
The  hope,  the  singing  loves,  the  joy  and  life 
Of  those  who  played  their  parts  of  calm  or  strife 
Through  youth  to  comprehending  age, 
On  this  sequestered  corner  of  Life's  stage. 

Then  give  Thyself,  O  little  room,  fling  wide 
Thine  heart!     And  may  thy  garnered  soul  abide 
With  all  who  shelter  here.     From  out  thy  meed 
Of  wisdom  give  to  each  his  dearest  need — 
May  the  light-hearted  find  some  pathos  here, 
But  to  the  sad,  O  little  room,  give  cheer! 

Margaret  Prescott  Montague 
117 


FLIGHT  OF  CROWS 
(In  Memoriam  W.  J.  L.,  1837-1920) 


OUT  of  the  chaos  of  sunset,  the  one  white  star  and 

the  silence, 
Far  in  the  fiery  dusk,  off  at  the  ends  of  the 

world, 
Out   of   the   lavender   twilight   of   misty   October 

horizons, 
Bursts,  like  a  birth  in  the  skies,  swarming  the 

legion  of  crows; 
Onward  and  over  the  valley,  and  strangely  perturbed 

in  their  winging, 
Bigger   and   blacker   they   stream,   cawing   in 

answer  to  caw. 
So  have  I  noted  in  April  the  wild-geese  honking  to 

northward, 
Only  in  loftier  air,  up  in  the  blue  and  the 

day.    .    . 

Morning  and  night  and  the  seasons,  and  ever  the 
ancient  migrations, 

While,  for  his  hour  a  man stands 

on  a  hill  as  they  pass. 

n 

News,  like  the  caw  of  the  crow  or  the  cry  of  the 

Canada  flyers, 

Startled  me  walking  at  noon,  naming  me  one 
who  had  died — 
118 


Flashed  by  the  desolate  wires  that  yonder,  threading 

the  tree-tops 
Pole  unto  pole  on  the  moor,  under  the  flight 

of  the  crows, 
Still  are  to  see,  on  a  silvery  strip  of  the  nethermost 

heavens, 

Cutting  the  splotches  of  red,  crossing  from  dark 
ness  to  dark  .    .    . 
News  of  the  earth  and  the  ages,  and  spelt  by  the 

spirit  of  lightning: 

Bolt  from  the  cloud  or  the  wire — each  is  an 
omen  to  man. 


in 

Here  by  the  mound  of  the  Eagle,  obscure  in  the 

yellowing  grasses, 
Under  an  oak  that  is  gone,  leaving  the  acorn  for 

ours, 
Once,  ere  the  Saxon  invader  renamed  the  ravines 

and  the  ranges, 

Bronze  hands  kindled  a  blaze,  cheery  and  pun 
gent  as  mine, — 
Pausing,  I  fancy  as  I,  as  followed  the  last  of  the 

fledgings 
Bat-like    hither    and    yon — suddenly    swifter 

away 

Night  and  the  seasons  and  cycles,  and  ever  the 

ancient  migrations, 

While,  for  its  hour  a  fire  .    .    .  burns  on  a  hill 
as  they  pass. 

119 


IV 

And,  as  the  haze  and  the  gloaming  have  blotted  the 

roads  and  the  landmarks, 
Yonder  and  yonder  the  plain.  .    .    .  spreads, 

like  an  alien  world, 
Quiet,  primeval,  and  vast,  as  in  autumns  after  the 

ice-age, 
When,  from  the  journeying  seeds,  blown  by  the 

South  in  the  spring 
(Blown  to  the  edge  of  the  desert,  the  hollows  of  silt 

and  the  drumlins, 
Born  in  the  toes  of  a  tern,  cast  in  the  dung  of  a 

deer), 
Summer  by  summer  the  junipers,  sumachs,  birches, 

and  berries, 
Gained  on  the  leagues  of  the  north,  bleak  with 

Arcturus  and  cold  .    .    . 
Season  and  cycle  and  aeon,  and  ever  the  ancient 

migrations, 

Whether  a  man  and  his  fire  .    .    .  linger  or  not 
on  the  hill. 

William  Ellery  Leonard 


120 


"  SWEET  REASONABLENESS  " 

RETURN,  Sweet  Reasonableness 

To  our  perturbed  earth, 
Gather  its  sceptres  in  thy  hands, 

Preside  at  every  hearth, 
Say  thy  command  upon  our  lips, 

Subdue  our  flaunting  dress, 
And  on  the  pulse  of  our  desires 

Thy  cooling  finger  press. 

For  lo,  Religion  wanting  thee 

Builds  inquisition  halls; 
Sweet  Love  turns  jailor  to  her  mate — 

Her  palace  crumbling  falls. 
The  wine  of  pleasure  poison  is 

Without  thy  antidote; 
And  life  a  shipwreck  if  thy  hand 

Guide  not  her  tossing  boat. 

Among  thy  peaceful  olive  groves 

No  gloomy  prisons  stand, 
And  War's  rude  trumpet  never  blows 

Where  thou  dost  rule  the  land. 
Dear  Guest  of  Nation  and  of  Hearth, 

We  miss  thy  gracious  sway. 
Come  to  our  troubled  House  of  Earth — 

Thou  hast  been  long  away! 

May  Riley  Smith 


121 


POET,  SINGER,  BIRD 
ON  a  sunshine  autumn  day 
In  a  sordid  London  park, 
I  listened  by  the  thronging  way 
To  the  summer's  last,  lone  lark 
O'er  his  coppice-hidden  haunt 
Pouring  out  his  skyward  chaunt 
Man  and  season  could  not  daunt. 
And  listening,  lingering,  on  I  stray 
Till,  lo,  a  nook  for  poets  meet, 
And  a  sundial  at  my  feet. 
And  stooping  down  the  hour  to  see, 
This  legend  I  can  dimly  read 
In  the  tarnished  marble  brede: 
"  Here,  in  eighteen-twenty-three 
Beethoven  wrote  his  Fruhlingslied." 

As  nearer,  clearer,  overhead 
Sang  the  lark,  I  musing  said: 
"  Even  the  Master  Poet,  he, 
In  his  measure  wild  and  free, 
Can  but  show  us  heaven's  gate 
Where,  with  dawn  and  cloud  elate, 
Nor  seen  nor  heard,  the  lark  must  be; 
And  wingless,  on  the  fettering  land, 
Yearning,  tiptoe,  must  we  stand 
Till  the  Singer  wanders  by 
And  touches  with  his  wizard  wand 
The  Poet's  struggling,  half-freed  word 
Soaring  now  up  to  the  sky; 
And  at  heaven's  gate  are  heard 
Together  Poet,  Singer,  Bird." 

Benjamin  Sledd 
122 


WHEN  FREEDOM  CAME 

—1865— 

THAT  fateful  spring-time  morn,  how  fair  it  dawned! 
Yet  all  things  seemed  amiss.    Across  the  bars 
Old  Bess  and  Rose,  the  last  of  goodly  herds, 
Saved  by  their  cunning  from  the  spoiler's  hand, 
Lowed  for  the  tardy  maid;  and  from  the  swamp, 
Poor,  lonely  Don,  in  weary  hiding-out, 
Would  neigh  and  neigh  again. 

Silent  and  dark 

To  hungry  little  eyes  the  kitchen  stood, 
The  crane  hung  grimly  by  the  mighty  hearth 
In  patient  waiting  for  the  faithful  hand 
Which  year  in  year  had  swung  it  back  and  forth. 
Was  Mary  ill?     How  strange  to  miss  her  song 
Which,  low  and  sweet,  ceased  not  from  dawn  to  dark. 
Her  song  had  changed  of  late;  vengeful  and  stern 
At  times  it  grew,  awing  the  listening  child; 
Then  sung  with  whispered  breath,  as  if  she  feared 
Her  lips  might  tell  the  rapture  of  her  heart. 

Wondering  and  half  afraid,  the  child  stole  in, 
Then  tiptoed  out,  over  the  creaking  floor, 
Like  one  who  leaves  at  night  a  dead  man's  room; 
And,  shuddering^  crouched  down  on  the  sunny  stile 
In  heart-sick  longing  for  he  knew  not  what. 
His  dusky  playmates  heeded  not  his  signs, 
But  round  the  cabin  corners  furtive  peeped 
With  looks  of  mingled  sorrow,  craft  and  fear. 

123 


And  even  Isaac,  dearest,  best  of  slaves, 
Comrade  and  comforter,  strode  muttering  past 
With  bended  head,  and  feigned  to  see  him  not. 
He  could  have  wept  for  very  loneliness. 

What  ailed  the  negroes  all?    Beside  her  door 
Sat  aged  Martha — stolid,  dumb, — but  now 
With  kerchiefed  head  and  bundle  on  her  knee 
In  patient-eager  waiting,  like  a  child 
Arrayed  for  its  first  journey.     In  and  out 
Went  Isaac,  shepherd  of  the  expectant  flock, 
Which,  huddling  round,  stayed  but  some  promised 
sign. 

Galloping  round  the  bend,  a  soldier  came, 

Paused,  waved  a  flag,  and  shouted  to  the  slaves. 

Then  in  the  deep,  tense  stillness,  wild  and  sweet. 

Fierce  and  exultant  as  the  cry  of  beasts, 

Their  voices  rose  in  mighty  unison 

Of  frenzied  song;  and  Isaac  led  them  forth 

In  solemn  march  down  freedom's  unknown  way, 

Trustful,  unthinking,  as  the  tribes  of  yore. 

And  they  were  gone,  without  one  farewell  word, 

One  motion  of  regret  for  the  old  life. 

Far  off  their  singing  faint  and  fainter  grew, 

Then  died  away,  and  in  the  death-like  hush 

Only  the  low,  deep  sobbing  of  a  child. 

Day  after  day  the  desolate  cabins  stood 
With  doors  wide-flung — the  master  willed  it  so, 
In  hope  to  lure  the  flock  back  to  their  fold. 
Still  in  its  corner  waited  Mary's  bed 

124 


White  and  untouched;   and  Isaac's  faithful  clock 
Ticked  placidly  away  with  none  to  heed. 
The  gourd  hung  dry  and  thirsty  by  the  door. 

Would  they  return?    A  long,  long  week  had  gone, 
And  creeping  up  to  bed  a  lonely  child 
Peeped  wistful  out  into  the  misty  night — 
To  see  a  light  gleam  from  its  well-known  place 
By  Isaac's  hearth.    If  only  it  could  be! 
Out  at  the  back-hall-door  and  down  the  path 
The  white-robed  figure  went  with  flying  feet, 
And  paused  half-frightened  in  the  cabin  door. 
'Twas  he  indeed!  but  older  grown  he  seemed, 
His  eyes  fixed  mournfully  upon  the  fire. 
"Isaac!  "  and  at  the  breathless  cry  of  joy 
The  old  man  started  up,  as  round  his  neck 
Soft  little  arms  were  flung;  and  to  his  heart 
He  clasped  the  child  and  rocked  him  tenderly, 
Mumbling  and  sobbing  out  endearing  names. 

And  she,  the  wise,  good  mistress,  only  smiled 
And  stole  noiseless  away  with  tear-dimmed  eyes, 
When  late  at  night,  as  in  the  time  now  gone, 
She  found  old  Isaac  fallen  fast  asleep 
Beside  the  trundle-bed,  his  great  black  hand 
Clasped  to  the  bosom  of  the  sleeping  child. 

How  like  a  dream  it  was  when  Isaac's  horn 
Wakened  the  child  at  daybreak,  as  of  old; 
And  from  the  kitchen  came  once  more  the  sound 
Of  Mary's  voice!    And  yet  something  was  gone! 
Cowering  beneath  the  covers,  the  young  heart 
Sobbed  out  the  bitterness  of  first-found  grief. 

125 


One  after  one  the  fugitives  crept  back, 
Like  children  from  a  stolen  holiday, 
Half  sheepish,  half  defiant  in  their  looks; 
And  Isaac's  master  hand  imposed  again 
The  interrupted  task.    A  little  while 
Seemed  all  as  it  had  been;  and  then  once  more 
Vacant  and  desolate  the  cabins  stood, 
And  one  by  one  yielding  to  swift  decay, 
Their  roof-beams  tottered  in. 

That  faithful  heart- 
Faithful  until  the  end — long  since  in  dust, 
Sleeps  in  the  garden  at  the  master's  feet. 
But  still  his  cabin  stands — lone,  voiceless  ghost 
Of  all  that  was.    And  never  do  I  pass 
Its  threshold  but  with  bowed,  uncovered  head. 

Benjamin  Sledd 


126 


THE  HOUSE 

"  WHY  do  you  batter  down  the  walls  of  my  house?  " 
I  shouted  to  one  as  I  stood  on  the  top  of  my  roof. 
He  stopped  his  battering  and  said  with  an  air  of 

reproof: 

"  I  always  hated  you  because  you  stand  aloof, 
And  because  you  sit  drinking  wine  in  the  shadow  of 

the  boughs." 

At  that  there  arose  a  clamour  of  the  crows 
And  all  the  air  was  darkened  with  their  wings. 
I  lifted  the  wine  to  my  lips  in  a  heavenly  drowse. 
And  then  I  cast  off  all  thought  of  material  things 
So  he  that  hated  the  clamour  of  the  crows 
Stopped,  slept,  and  left  off  battering  at  my  house. 

Arthur  Symons 


127 


ON  READING  MANY  HISTORIES  OF 
THE  UNITED  STATES 

A  LONG  time  I  thought  it  was  our  Land  that  made  us ; 

The  land  so  free  so  long, 

The  homestead 

Earned  by  the  ploughing  pioneer; 

A  long  time  I  thought  it  was  the  Hundred  Races' 

Protagonists. 

Licking  with  outland  tongues  our  language, 

And  planting,  like  barbs  in  a  bull, 

Their  exotic  and  hybrid  thinking  in  ours. 


But  reading  many  volumes,  now  I  see 
Who  plays  the  master  role; — 
The  dark  Israel 
In  the  American  Egypt. 


He  that  is  forbidden 
To  share  our  policies, 
By  that  exclusion 
As  by  a  long  handle, 
He  twists  and  turns  them; 


He  that  is  excluded 
From  our  society, 
The  act  of  his  banishment 
Shapes  our  order; 

128 


Like  the  slave  gangs 
Sweating  in  the  brickyards 
Who  moulded  the  fates 
Of  the  golden  Pharoahs. 

Egypt!  we  have  our  plagues. 

The  plague  of  lice; — the  taboo,  the  Delicate  Subject; 

The  plague  of  locusts; — the  plague  of  a  thousand 

cautions, 
Circumlocutions, 
Customs, 

Whose  infinitesimal  mouths  eat  up  our  freedom; 
The  plague  of  blood  in  the  rivers; — the  Christian 

and  Jewish  churches, 
Discreetly  silent,  demure. 
The  plague  of  dead  fish; — the  plague  of  the  Double 

Standard, 
Democracy  with  its  master  and  subject  races. 

Past,  long  past,  is  the  Death  of  the  First-Born, 
When  the  angel  looked  at  the  slave's  low  lintel, 
And  passed  it  by, 

While  the  sons  of  the  Pharoahs  and  all  their  hun 
dreds, 

Yankee  and  Southron,  horse  and  foot, 
Fell, 
On  the  field  of  the  bugle  and  drum. 

He  has  risen  as  if  in  sleep,  to  the  passionless  order 
Of  a  force  blind,  universal 
As  gravitation; 

It  is  he,  the  hewer  of  wood,  the  drawer  of  water, — 

129 


Yea,  since  the  day  of  the  first  Dutch  slaver. 

It  is  he, 

Who  has  written,  who  is  writing 

American  history; 

Who  has  moulded,  who  is  moulding 

The  white  man's  soul. 

Sarah  N.  Cleghorn 


130 


ON  WALT  WHITMAN'S  "  LEAVES  OF  GRASS  " 

THIS  book  is  all  the  beaches  of  the  world 

Abask  at  noon  beneath  the  procreant  sun, 

The  weedy  marge  of  God's  fecundity 

Wallowed  with  flow  and  ebb  of  rhythmic  tides. 

Here  lies  the  margin  of  the  soul  of  man 

That  shoreward  slopes  to  the  upshining  hills 

Of  Art's  acropolis,  and  seaward  plunges 

To  primal  deeps  of  storm  and  lonely  stars. 

Here  breed  the  minnow  and  leviathan; 

Here  spawn  the  jelly-pulps  of  life;  and  here, 

Naked  and  vast,  uprises  from  the  ooze 

The  Adam  of  a  New  World  Genesis, 

Ancestral  of  Democracy.    In  dream 

He  stands,  and  twines  his  beard  with  tangled  bloom; 

Behind  him  o'er  the  sand  the  summer  wind 

Blows  from  the  sunk  wrecks  of  a  thousand  years: 

On  every  wreck  a  mating  song-bird  sings. 

Percy  MacKaye 


ART 

ART  has  her  altars  and  her  avatars, 
Makers-of-Beauty  worship  at  her  shrine; 
Earth  may  not  daunt  a  soul  that  scans  the  stars, 
And  wets  the  lips  with  more  than  mortal  wine. 

Imagination's  frankincense  and  myrrh 
Bedew  the  dust  and  sweeten  common  day; 
The  Poet  walks  in  meadows  lovelier 
Than  ours,  and  Visions  light  his  wandering  way.- 

Once  having  known  the  ecstasy  of  these, 
Once  having  glimpsed  that  high,  supernal  gleam, 
A  Sappho  sings  across  the  centuries, 
A  Poe  sleeps,  folded  in  that  perfect  Dream. 

Richard  Burton 


132 


PRINCETON  TO  VIRGINIA 

BEAUTY  and  loveliness  go  by  on  the  green  winds  of 

Spring, 
And  in  these  northern  elms  at  dusk  the  new  come 

thrushes  sing; 
Sing  to  a  twilight  where  in  hollows,  the  blossom 

trembles  with  flight  of  swallows. 
Through  the  April  night,  night  long, 
Towers  rise  like  dreaming  song: 
All  the  leaves  whisper  and  stir  at  the  quick  feet 

of  her. 
O  little  ghosts  of  thrushes  dead  and  ghosts  of  Spring 

glad  men, 
Here  is  another  Spring  for  you,  to  wake  dead  hearts 

again! 

Here  is  another  Spring,  gold  bees,  gold  birds;  a  new 
green  tent; 

The  stifled  beating  of  a  heart;  the  same  gay  baffle 
ment; 

And  if  we  do  not  know  if  here  is  grief  or  joy  of  the 
year, 

Through  each  April  night  still  go 

Dreaming  men,  who  dream,  and  so 

All  the  night,  for  their  sake,  listens  and  is  wide 
awake. 

Warm  arcades  and  cloister,  where  the  tangled  sun 
light  falls; 

Where  the  fragrant  mist  is  caught;  where  the  voice 
of  youth  recalls 


Now  the  gentle  hesitant,  older  spirits,  who  have 
grown  bolder; 

All  your  scented  hours  that  speed, 

Are  mur'mrous  and  accompanied. 

Through  the  horror  and  the  wrong,  still  uncon 
querable  is  song. 

O  keepers  of  a  memory  of  loveliness  and  pain, 

You  have  done  well  to  guard  your  ghosts,  lest  the 
great  dead  be  slain! 

Maxwell  Struthers  Burt 


134 


THE  PICTURES  OF  SOROLLA  Y  BASTIDA 

EASTWARD  He  planted  His  garden, 

Eastward  in  Eden  field: 

Grapes,  green  globed, 

Peaches,  flamy  lobed, 

Citron  and  honey-melon  and  pale  quince 

(It  seems  they  have  grown  sour  and  smaller,  since!) 

Thick  as  the  ground  could  yield 

God  planted  Eden  field. 

Surely  'twas  bravely  planned, 

That  shady  garden  land! 

What  slipped  and  went  awry? 

I  cannot  tell,  not  I. 

Twould  seem  He  tossed  His  ball  up,  up  toward 

heaven, 

And  then  .    .    .  and  then  .    .    . 
Somehow  the  heavy  hearts  of  us  poor  men 
Dragged  it  below  again. 

Down,  down  it  fell,  all  doomed,  all  unforgiven, 
Toward  very  hell: 
Poor  Gardener,  that  tried  to  garden  well! 

See  now,  He  catches  the  ball  in  His  hand. 

(Mark  me  well:  you  shall  understand.) 

What  was  wrong? 

Did  I  gentle  them  too  long? 

Were  the  fruits  too  many  and  sweet 

I  gave  them  to  eat? 

Was  there  no  salt  to  purify  them? 

No  tempting,  untrusty  sea  to  try  them? 


Was  there  no  wind  to  blow  them  clean? 
Did  I  wall  them  in  too  lush  and  green? 
"  Out  o'  the  garden,  lads!  "  quoth  He, 
"  I'll  plant  ye  now  twixt  the  sun  and  the  sea!  " 

And  still  He  cried,  "  More  sun!  "  till  the  sky  burned, 
And  then,   "More  sea!"  and  heaped  tie  green 

waves  high, 

And  yet  again,  "  More  sun!     I  say,  more  sun!  " 
Smoothly  began  the  great  seas  then  to  run, 
Purpling  and  blooming  like  a  pigeon's  wing, 
Tinted  like  summer  plums, 
When  luscious  August  comes, 
That  falls  in  deeps  of  emerald  grass; 
Speared  through,  where  shafts  of  sunlight  pass 
Into  green  glooms, 
Where  strange  white  coral  looms, 
And  the  fresh  froth,  piled  high  in  milky  ledges 
Upon  the  smooth  sea's  glassy,  sheeted  edges. 
And  the  wind  drove  down  with  a  shout, 
And  deep  in  the  core  of  the  sky  the  sun  poured  out, 
And  the  air  shook  with  it  and  quivered  and  throbbed 

through  it  round  and  about. 

Then  where  the  wave  slipped  back  and  left  the  sand 
As  smooth  and  polished  as  a  dove's  wing,  spread, 
He  dropped  two  children  from  His  curved  hand, 
Pink,  full  of  mirth,  and  hardy,  seaward  led. 
And  one  stood  naked  as  the  seacliffs  stand. 
And  over  one  a  wondrous  sun-lit,  sky-clear  robe  was 
spread. 

136 


And  one  He  tossed  (and  laughed  and  caught  again 
And  tossed  again,  as  children  toss  a  bubble) 
Who  'lighted,  laughing,  bubble-light,  and  then, 
Ran  by  on  waves  of  blue,  through  clouds  of  blue, 
Breathing  the  blue,  star-shining  through  the  blue, 
The  very  blue  of  eternity — O  when 
Was  life  so  wholly  glad, 
And  knew  not  to  be  sad, 

Nor  guessed  that  pain  and  want  stood  waiting,  death 
and  the  soul  and  trouble! 


And  soft  fleshed  babies  fell, 

Like  little  rolling  loves  blown  down  from  the  blue, 

That  drooped  their  heads  as  baby  roses  do 

Against  the  mother  flower, 

Or  staggered  into  the  spray, 

Whom  the  waves  chased  away, 

Dripping  like  rosebuds  in  a  shower. 

(Say,  could  the  Gardener  tell 

They  would  outgrow  His  planting 

And  cease  one  day  their  happy  cherub  chanting?) 


Watch  while  He  catches  His  ball  again! 

Will  ye  not  turn  to  Me,  then? 

Think  on  Me,  who  lit  the  sun  for  ye, 

Loosed  the  salt  sea  and  let  it  run  o'er  ye, 

Come  to  Me,  now,  will  ye  come? 

But  the  children  were  dumb. 

Look  back  and  upward:  your  God  stands  behind! 

But  the  children  were  blind. 


Sun-soaked  and  sea-drenched  they  wait  there, 

Drunk  with  the  reek  of  the  sun, 

Fresh  from  the  wash  of  the  sea, 

Laughing  against  the  wind. 

The  infinite  blue  is  their  Fate,  there, 

Sorrow  has  never  begun, 

Suffering  never  shall  be, 

None  has  repented  nor  sinned. 

So  long  as  the  Ball  shall  roll, 

They  laugh  at  us  there,  supreme, 

W;th  the  blue  for  a  dream, 

And  the  sun  for  a  heart, 

And  the  sea  for  a  soul, 

Safe,  and  unworn,  and  forever  set  sweetly  apart! 

Josephine  Daskam  Bacon 


138 


DREAM 

Dedicated  to  the  University  of  Virginia 
WHEN  I  am  through  with  un-immortal  things, 

And  dwell  in  Heaven's  courtyards,  blithe  and 

free, 

They  will  be  kind  to  humbler  souls  like  me, — 
Whose  souls,  even  here  on  earth,  were  brave  with 

wings. 

What  if  great  Homer  finds  my  gate  and  sings 
The  music  of  his  loud-resounding  sea? 
And  what  if  Michelangelo  should  be 
Ready  to  paint  his  rare  imaginings 
Upon  my  mansion's  wall? 

Hid  from  the  street, 
I  think  that  on  my  lawn  a  beechen  dial 

Will    mark   all   hours,   carved   there   by 

Rodin's  knife; 

And  Brahms  himself  will  play  with  me  the  suite 
Composed  by  Papa  Franck  for  my  dear  viol 
Of  mellow  wood  cut  from  the  tree  of  life. 

Robert  Haven  Schauffler 


139 


ACHILLES  AND  THE  MAIDEN 

Wind  cannot  bring  so  far  the  blood  and  dust, 

But  only  raise  your  head  up — do  you  hear 

Faint   bell-notes  from  the  plain?     Blade-strokes, 

sword-thrust, 
Shield-rattle!    They  are  fighting,  and  you  not  there. 

He  would  not  heed  the  challenge,  would  not  stir, 
Though  none  so  well  as  he  that  signal  knew: 
From  his  unhappy  memories  would  not  pause, 
Though  the  breeze  whispered  and  the  danger  grew. 

No  man,  a  maiden  drives  them  from  the  field, 
A  wicked  huntress  out  of  the  cold  moon! 
She  touches  them,  they  die,  they  have  no  shield; 
What  will  you  come  to,  if  you  come  not  soon? 

But  he  with  bowed  head  let  the  voice  go  by, 
And  felt  rebellious  loathing,  and  behind 
Impenetrable  silence  nursed  disgust. 
This,  then,  was  this  the  great  hour  he  should  find — 
Brief,  crowded  with  beauty,  bringing  fame? 
Beauty?    What  beauty? — Fame?    Blown  with  the 
dust! 


Take  up  your  arms,  come  down  and  fight  again, 
They  have  bidden  the  wind  carry  their  last  cry. 
You  shall  hear  now  the  curse  of  dying  men; 
What  will  you  say,  Achilles?    Must  they  die? 

140 


It  was  the  wind  that  freshened,  or  the  wave 
Of  flight  and  terror  toward  his  station  broke; 
At  last  he  heard,  and  wearily  bound  on 
Breast-plate,  picked  up  the  shield,  the  spear  of  oak, 
And  toward  the  battle  walked  superbly  down, 
Wearing  the  armor  lightly,  a  mere  cloak, 
Easy  in  his  hand  the  spear;  and  bold  he  went 
Unhelmeted,  with  insolent  beauty  brave, 
His  body  moving  in  rhythm  magnificent. 

He  came  down  from  his  lofty  hill,  by  charred 
And  scattered  ashes  of  abandoned  fires, 
Hoof-prints  of  stamping  horses,  and  spilled  oats, 
Through  the  weird,  empty  camp  where  yesternight 
The  army  took  its  shelter.    Here  were  coats 
Dropped  at  the  first  alarum,  a  wine-cup 
With  half  its  ruby  burden  yet  untouched, 
And  the  ironic  dice  lay  on  the  board. 
Beyond  the  tents  he  walked  through  a  green  calm 
Of  clover,  untrodden  meadows  poppy-sown, 
And  then  the  crowded  plain  and  the  loud  fight. 

Before  him  as  he  came  the  host  made  room — 
All  peril  over,  with  him  there,  the  one  man! 
Yet  without  shout  they  saw  him,  raised  no  cry, 
No  welcome,  so  many  bodies  lay,  for  whom 
He  came  late  to  the  rescue.    But  he  strode  by, 
Bringing  his  solitude,  and  opened  up 
A  wedge  of  silence  till  he  reached  the  van. 
Then  from  the  other  side  the  headlong  foe 
Following  the  maiden  felt  him  in  the  track, 

141 


Caught  sight  of  armor  and  his  golden  hair, 
Fled  unabashed,  and  left  those  two  alone — 
With  awe  and  terror,  both  lines  swaying  back 
Within  a  girdled  silence  gave  them  space. 
She,  when  the  battle  ceased  from  round  her,  stood 
Waiting  for  him,  a  little  thrilled  to  know 
The  moment  come  at  last,  and  see  him  there 
Splendid  as  they  had  said,  now  face  to  face. 
And  he  casually  marked  the  cypress  grove, 
The  screen  of  contrast  that  behind  her  rose, 
Her  helmet  crested,  her  corslet  glittering, 
The  belted  sword,  the  two  spears  in  her  hand, 
Twin  javelins,  light  as  a  hunter's  dart, 
All  gleaming  against  the  shadowy  green. 
Illusive  radiance  on  that  vivid  form — 
Smoothness  to  sight  and  touch,  the  enchanted  sheen 
Of  jade  or  porphyry — the  gold  sunbeams  threw; 
Caught  from  this  world  she  seemed,  and  wrought 

in  art, 

Cut  marble  or  ivory  cameo. 
What  eyes  the  helmet  hid,  he  tried  to  guess, 
To  trace  her  body  under  the  bronzen  dress, 
He  fancied  her  heart  panting,  her  wild  pulse 
After  the  running  and  the  rain  of  blows, 
Yet  asked  again  whether  she  breathed  at  all, 
So  motionless  her  beauty  held  its  pose. 
Each  stood  on  guard  to  know  the  other's  will. 
With  unexcited  spirit,  unlifted  arm, 
He  studied  the  bright  mystery  until 
The  quiet  weighed  upon  him  like  a  charm. 
With  that  she  threw  a  spear,  a  silver  flash; 
He  caught  it  on  his  shield,  and  the  shaft  broke. 

142 


Did  her  heart  faint  a  little,  certitude 

Fall  from  her?    She  leapt  toward  him  like  a  flame, 

She  cast  that  other  javelin  furiously, 

And  drew  her  sword.    He  only  leaned  aside, 

Slipped  from  the  peril,  and  reaching  back  for  aim, 

Drove  true  through  the  vain  bronze  his  matchless 

spear, 

Straight  through  the  corslet  to  her  living  heart. 
It  never  left  his  hand,  she  was  so  near; 
His  fingers  on  the  weapon  felt  her  death, 
Felt  the  woman  quiver  along  the  wood 
As  though  her  nerves  had  mingled  pain  with  his. 
He  had  not  loosed  a  stream  of  fighting  wrath 
To  ride  him  lightly  over  things  like  this — 
To  see  her  body  crumble  with  quick  breath. 

He  leaned,  and  gently  turned  the  relaxed  form, 
Undid  the  armor  on  the  wounded  side 
With  numb,  regretful  fingers,  tenderly 
Raised  it,  and  drawing  out  the  spear-head,  tried 
In  pity  not  to  disturb  the  delicate  cloth 
Blood-molded  to  her  bosom,  soft  and  warm. 
With  eyes  impulse-averted  he  untied 
The  helmet  from  the  limp  and  drooping  head, 
And  lo,  a  face  made  for  another  fate — 
Brown  hair  upon  a  white  and  queenly  brow, 
And  dreaming  lips  that  held  no  curve  of  hate, 
Eyelids  self-closed,  as  though  content  to  sleep, 
And  cheeks  with  rose-bloom  not  yet  ebbed  away; 
Beauty  that  called  for  worship  and  the  prayers 
Of  lovers  tortured  with  their  empty  arms, 
Yet  in  itself  austere,  remote,  unmoved; 

143 


A  face  to  set  on  passion,  yet  beneath 

Archness  and  ardor,  beneath  the  golden  breasts 

A  maiden  soul — as  at  evening  when  fleecy  clouds 

Blush  in  the  east  a  farewell  to  the  sun, 

Glides,  under  the  warmth,  untouched,  the  new  moon. 

He  stood  up  to  his  height,  gazed  down  at  her, 
Then  stooping  yet  again  as  though  he  must, 
Took  up  his  scarlet  spear  from  where  it  lay, 
Then  gazed  once  more  on  the  face  whitening  fast. 

He  that  had  killed  her,  found  it  ill  to  leave 
The  fragile  danger  he  had  laid  in  dust; 
Not  well  to  stay,  but  hard  to  turn  at  last 
To  thread  his  journey  through  the  evening  camp, 
Through  cheerful  noises  around  supper-fires, 
Through  laughter  of  soldiers  at  their  lucky  day, 
With  joke  and  ribald  song.    He  heard  one  say 
How  he  would  use  his  safety  after  war — 
What  sort  of  woman,  and  what  kind  of  wine. 

^  John  Erskine 


144 


THE  NINTH  SYMPHONY 

i 

PLAINING  in  the  pained  stillness  breeds, 
Wail  that  no  night-wind  conjures  in  the  pines, 
'lo  mix  with  the  feeble  plaint  of  faded  weeds 

Where  pale  grass  waves. 

And  no  star  shines, — 
Where  Autumn  drenches  unremembered  graves. 

n 

Fled  all  that  woeful  mystery, 
As  of  Death's  last  privacy 
Wherein  the  Silence  called  aloud 
From  windings  of  the  shroud. 

Antic  measures  run 

For  dancers  i'  the  sun, 
Such  as  once  did  of  the  dew-bell  sup, 
And  house  them  in  the  acorn-cup; 
Anon  to  trip  the  moon- washed  knoll  behind. 
The  while  Titania  gave  her  ringlets  to  the  wind. — 

A  chill  wind  blows  this  way, 

Scares  the  fairy  folk  away: 
Before  hoarse  revel  blasted  forth 
Of  Thor  and  all  his  North, 
To  some  sweet  keep  the  greenwood  has 

Piper  and  dancer  pass. 

m 

Hark!  a  glad  voice  sings 
Of  humble,  sunny  things 

In  a  shepherd's  tune. 
145 


Pastoral  passion!  learn  of  birds  when  they 
From  the  boon  East  woo  down  the  day: 
Blithe  viols  of  the  morn, 
Smooth  flute  and  woolly  horn, 

Call  around — 
Half  odour  and  half  sound — 

Happy  harmony, 

All  minstrelsies 

With  iterative  bliss, 
For  comfort  of  the  summer  ground. 

IV 

With  what  speech,  now,  is  it  imbued 

The  locked  and  stolid  wood! 

The  quickened  string,  what  does  it  say, 

What  utter  might  obey, 

Answering  the  bright  brass,  brave, 

With  splendour  of  the  stellar  stave! 

As  on  the  mother  morn, 

When  the  stars  were  born, 
Once  more  the  worlds  from  out  the  murk  of  night 

Leap  into  light, 

Break  into  praise 
Of  Him  the  Ancient  of  Days! 


To  bless  the  ears  of  men, 
It  is  abroad  again, 
The  concord  of  the  sonorous  night 
The  wild  worlds  made 
When  they  obeyed, 
146 


And  did  into  their  orbits  draw, — 

Life's  hymn,  her  rhythmic  order,  voiceful  law: 

What  He  builds  up  shall  none  destroy; 
Go  thou  the  path,  and  eat  thy  bread  with  joy: 
The  enduring  soul  shall  unto  gladness  grow, 
Love  shall  have  and  know. 

John  Vance  Cheney 


147 


A  CHOICE 

I  HEED  not  him  who  science  sings, 
Busy  with  the  dull  shows  of  things, 
Mistaking  earth  and  air  and  sea 
For  ultimate  reality, 
Nor  knowing  them  the  changing  dress 
Where  spirit  puts  on  loveliness. 
Philosophy  I  may  not  boast, 
Where  endlessly  ghost  chases  ghost 
Too  swiftly  o'er  the  universe 
For  this,  my  human-hearted  verse. 
Of  history  so  much  I  choose 
As  a  diviner  art  may  use 
To  quicken  faith  in  faltering  soul. 
Here,  part  is  greater  than  the  whole! 
All  ugly  deeds  I  banish  thus 
To  dwell  with  night  in  Erebus. 
What  need  have  we  of  ancient  crimes 
Within  whose  ears  the  music  chimes 
That  wins  the  souls  of  men  to  run 
A  nobler  race  than  they  have  done? 

Of  poetry  be  mine  to  tell, 
Where  Truth,  which  aye  unseen  doth  dwell 
Beyond  the  sight  and  ear  of  men, 
Is  fashioned  fair  for  human  ken, 
In  images  so  radiant-fair 
Our  eyes  may  see  and  know  her  there. 
Unending  converse  shall  be  mine 
With  those  whose  glorious  faces  shine 
From  out  the  dark,  as  shines  a  star, 
Steadfast  forever,  and  afar. 
148 


Antigone's  sweet  sacrifice, 

The  love  in  young  Alcestis'  eyes, 

The  spirit-strife  of  Lancelot, 

And  Hamlet's  thought  escape  me  not. 

For  moments  come,  when  I  unloose 

Latchets  of  my  unworthy  shoes 

Where  Shakespeare's  soul,  in  godlike  strife, 

Fights  on  the  far  frontier  of  life 

To  win  one  inch  for  you  and  me 

From  all-surrounding  mystery; 

Where  very  inspiration  broods 

In  the  young  Keats'  immortal  moods; 

Where  Shelley,  winged  all  rainbow-bright, 

Speeds  toward  the  far-off  gates  of  light; 

Where  Browning  scorns,  in  challenge  fine, 

Who  fail  to  find  this  life  divine. 

All  dull,  mechanic  tasks  I  spurn, 
Praying  that  still  within  me  burn 
Some  little  spark  of  sacred  fire, 
That  I  may  share  their  large  desire 
Who  wrought,  for  your  delight  and  mine, 
Beauty  eternal  and  divine, 
In  poetry,  the  "  creed  of  creeds," 
Where  noble  words  tell  noble  deeds. 

Margaret  Sherwood 


149 


REMEMBERED  BEAUTY 

I  WILL  look  round  about  with  love 

On  all  of  God's  created  things: 

The  stream  that  down  the  valley  sings, 

The  clouds  that  float  so  free  above, 

The  ferns  that  fringe  the  mountain  springs, 

The  woodland  where  the  shy  beasts  rove, 

The  sea  that  fills  this  quiet  cove, 

The  warbler  jewelled  with  flashing  wings; 

The  day  will  come  when  in  the  strife 
That  breaks  the  strength  of  generous  life 
Remembered  joys  may  bring  release 
To  walk  in  steadfastness  and  peace: 
Etched  by  emotion's  fadeless  art 
A  flower  may  bow  my  haughty  heart. 

Tertius  van  Dyke 


ISO 


WHAT  THE  CLAY  SAID  UNTO  THE  POTTER 

I  DO  not  question  why  I  thus  was  made; 
Low  in  the  dust  with  hand  on  lips  I  bow; 
I  do  not  ask  Thee  either  why  or  how 
Thy  hand  did  shape  me,  or  what  balance  weighed 
My  merits  or  demerits.    I  have  prayed 
For  all  the  light  Thy  wisdom  would  allow, 
To  make  my  pathway  clear,  but  now 
So  long  in  darkness  have  my  footsteps  strayed, 
I  trust  my  all  unto  Thee  to  the  end. 
Whether  for  honored  or  dishonored  use, 
Whether  to  be  Time's  king  or  man's  dull  drudge, 
From  Thee  I  came;  when  from  Thy  ways  I  trend, 
Remember  what  I  am — Thou  mad'st  me  thus, 
And  being  clay — as  Thou  hast  made  me — judge. 

R.  T.  W.  Duke,  Jr. 


GOODBYE 

THE  last  of  last  words  spoken  is,  Goodbye — 
The  last  dismantled  flower  in  the  weed-grown  hedge, 
The  last  thin  rumor  of  a  feeble  bell  far  ringing, 
The  last  blind  rat  to  spurn  the  mildewed  rye, 

A  hardening  darkness  glasses  the  haunted  eye, 
Shines    into    nothing    the    Watchman's    burnt-out 

candle, 

Wreathes  into  scentless  nothing  the  wasting  incense, 
The  last  of  last  words  spoken  is,  Goodbye. 

Love  of  its  muted  music  breathes  no  sigh, 
Thought  in  her  ivory  tower  gropes  in  her  spinning, 
Toss  on  in  vain  the  whispering  trees  of  Eden, 
Last,  of  all  last  words  spoken,  is,  Goodbye. 

Walter  de  la  Mare 


152 


INDEX 

Achilles  and  the  Maiden,  140 

Afterthoughts,  100 

ALDINGTON,  RICHARD— To  a  Greek  Marble,  111 

ALDINGTON,  MRS.  RICHARD  (H.  D.)—  Egypt,  27 

Art,  132 

At  the  Grave  of  Poe,  32 

BACON,  JOSEPHINE  DASKAM— The  Pictures  of  Sorolla  y  Bas- 
tida,  135 

BARDIN,  JAMES  C— Tropic  Beach  Song,  14 

BATES,  KATHARINE  LEE— Woodrow  Wilson,  40 

Before  the  Crucifix,  56 

BOSHER,  KATE  LANGLEY— Lee,  52 

BRADFORD,  GAMALIEL— Thomas  Jefferson,  Ode  to  Thomas  Jef 
ferson,  34,  35 

BRANCH,  ANNA  HEMPSTEAD— I  Think  of  Him  as  One  Who 
Fights,  82 

BURR,  AMELIA  JOSEPHINE— Before  the  Crucifix,  56 

BURT,  MAXWELL  STRUTHERS— Princeton  to  Virginia,  133 

BURTON,  RICHARD — Art,  132 

CHENEY,  JOHN  VANCE— The  Ninth  Symphony,  145 

Chipmunks,  13 

Choice,  A,  148 

CLARKE,  GEORGE  HERBERT— The  Last  Mobilization,  Motionless, 

68,70 
CLEGHORN,   SARAH   N—  On  Reading  Many  Histories  of  the 

United  States,  128 
CONE,  HELEN  GRAY — Sonnets  Dedicated  to  the  University  of 

Virginia,  38 

CONKLING,  GRACE  HAZARD — Maine  Woods  in  Winter,  8 
Cox,  ELEANOR  ROGERS— To  a  Dead  Poet,  The  White  Birds  of 

Aengus,  79,  80 

DARGAN,  OLIVE  TILFORD — Defiance,  58 

DAVIES,  MARY  CAROLYN — Tree  Songs,  10 

DAVIES,  W.  H.— On  What  Sweet  Banks,  4 

DAVIS,  FANNIE  STEARNS — See  Gifford,  Fannie  Stearns 

153 


Defiance,  58 

DE  LA  MARE,  WALTER — Good-bye,  152 

DODD,  LEE  WILSON — Secular  Ode,  65 

Dream,  139 

DRINKWATER,  JOHN — A  Lesson  to  My  Ghost,  101 

DRISCOLL,  LOUISE — A  Weed,  21 

DUKE,  R.  T.  W.,  JR.— What  the  Clay  Said  unto  the  Potter,  151 

DUNSANY,  EDWARD,  LORD — To  Keats,  3 

Duovir,  84 

Education,  66 

Egypt,  27 

Enchanted  Castle,  The,  26 

ERSKINE,  JOHN — Achilles  and  the  Maiden,  140 

Fate,  54 

FLETCHER,  JOHN  GOULD— Prelude  and  Ode,  24 

Flight  of  Crows,  118 

FINLEY,  JOHN — Duovir,  84 

GARRISON,  THEODOSIA— An  Old  Poet,  75 
GIFFORD,  FANNIE  STEARNS — The  Turn  of  the  Road,  104 
GILDERSLEEVE,  BASIL  L. — To  the  University  of  Virginia,  106 
Good-bye,  152 

GORDON,  ARMISTEAD  CHURCHILL — The  University  of  Virginia,  1 
GRIFFITH,  WILLIAM — Spring  Blew  Open  the  Door,  Origins, 
17,  19 

HARDY,  THOMAS— The  Two  Rosalinds,  113 
H.  D.  (Mrs.  Richard  Aldington)— Egypt,  27 
House,  The,  127 

I  Know  All  This  When  Gipsy  Fiddles  Cry,  46 
I  Think  of  Him  as  One  Who  Fights,  82 
In  an  Oriental  Shop,  109 

KREYMBORG,  ALFRED— Chipmunks,  13 

Lake  Dweller,  The,  5 

Last  Mobilization,  The,  68 

LAWRENCE,  D.  H.— Slopes  of  Etna,  Tropic,  22,  23 

Lee,  52 

LEE,  AGNES— The  Singer  of  the  Shadows,  29 

LEONARD,  WILLIAM  ELLERY— Flight  of  Crows,  118 

Lesson  to  My  Ghost,  A,  101 

LETTS,  WINIFRED  M.— Somehow— Somewhere— Sometime,  60. 

154 


LINDSAY,  VACHEL — Our  Mother  Pocahontas,  I  Know  All  This 

When  Gipsy  Fiddles  Cry,  43,  46 
LOWELL,  AMY— The  Enchanted  Castle,  26 

MACKAYE,  PERCY— On  Walt  Whitman's  Leaves  of  Grass,  131 

Maine  Woods  in  Winter,  8 

Man  Came  to  the  Mountain,  The,  71 

MARKHAM,  EDWIN— Virgilia,  95 

MAYNARD,  THEODORE — Sonnet,  Paganism,  61,  62 

McCoRMiCK,  VIRGINIA  TAYLOR — When  Spring  Returns,  16 

MONTAGUE,    MARGARET    PRESCOTT— The    Soul    of    the    Little 

Room,  117 

MORGAN,  ANGELA— Education,  66 
"  Motionless,"  70 

Ninth  Symphony,  The,  145 

NORTON,  GRACE  FALLOW— The  Smiling  Dead,  67 

O'CONOR,  NORREYS  JEPHSON— The  Spirit  of  Ireland  Considers 

Her  Heritage,  In  an  Oriental  Shop,  107,  109 
Ode  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  35 
Old  Poet,  An,  75 

On  an  Old  Hymn-Book,  112 

On  Reading  Many  Histories  of  the  United  States,  128 

On  Walt  Whitman's  Leaves  of  Grass,  131 

On  What  Sweet  Banks,  4 

Origins,  19 

Our  Mother  Pocahontas,  43 

Paganism,  62 

Pictures  of  Sorolla  y  Bastida,  The,  135 

Poet— Singer— Bird,  122 

Praise,  87 

Prelude  and  Ode,  24 

Princeton  to  Virginia,  133 

Remembered  Beauty,  150 

RICE,  CALE  YOUNG— The  Lake  Dweller,  5 

ROBINSON,  EDWIN  ARLINGTON— Afterthoughts,  100 

SAMPSON,  HENRY  AYLETT— On  an  Old  Hymn-Book,  112 

Saul,  90 

SCHAUFFLER,  ROBERT  HAVEN— Dream,  139 

SCOLLARD,  CLINTON— At  the  Grave  of  Poe,  32 

Sea-Horizons,  6 

Secular  Code,  65 

155 


SHERWOOD,  MARGARET— A  Choice,  148 

Singer  of  the  Shadows,  The,  29 

SLEDD,  BENJAMIN — Poet — Singer — Bird,  When  Freedom  Came, 

122,  123 

Slopes  of  Etna,  22 
Smiling  Dead,  The,  67 

SMITH,  MAY  RILEY— "  Sweet  Reasonableness,"  121 
Somehow — Somewhere — Sometime,  60 
Sonnet,  61 

Sonnets  Dedicated  to  the  University  of  Virginia,  38 
Soul  of  the  Little  Room,  The,  117 
Spirit  of  Ireland  Considers  Her  Heritage,  The,  107 
Spring  Blew  Open  the  Door,  17 
STERLING,  GEORGE — Saul,  90 

STORK,  CHARLES  WHARTON — To  a  Suicide  Poet,  76 
"  Sweet  Reasonableness,"  121 
SYMONS,  ARTHUR — The  House,  127 

Thomas  Jefferson,  34 

To  a  Dead  Poet,  79 

To  a  Greek  Marble,  111 

To  a  Suicide  Poet,  76 

To  a  War  Poet,  74 

To  Keats,  3 

To  the  University  of  Virginia,  53 

To  the  University  of  Virginia,  106 

Tree  Songs:  I— II— III— IV,  10,  11,  12 

Tropic,  23 

Tropic  Beach  Song,  14 

Turn  of  the  Road,  The,  104 

Two  Rosalinds,  The,  113 

University,  The,  63 
University  of  Virginia,  The,  1 
UNTERMEYER,  JEAN  STARR— To  a  War  Poet,  74 
UNTERMEYER,  Louis— The  Window,  93 

VAN  DYKE,  TERTIUS— Remembered  Beauty,  150 
Virgilia,  95 

WEAVING,  WILLOUGHBY — Fate,  54 

Weed,  A,  21 

What  the  Clay  Said  unto  the  Potter,  151 

WHEELOCK,  JOHN  HALL— Sea-Horizons,  6 

When  Freedom  Came,  123 

When  Spring  Returns,  16 

White  Birds  of  Aengus,  The,  80 

156 


WILKINSON,  FLORENCE — The  University,  63 

WILKINSON,  MARGUERITE — Praise,  87 

Window,  The,  93 

WOOD,  CLEMENT — The  Man  Came  to  the  Mountain,  71 

WOODBERRY,  GEORGE  EDWARD — To  the  University  of  Virginia, 

Woodrow,  Wilson,  40 


157 


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MAR  24  1931 


JK. 


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